


see the sky & all the land (together again)

by tallykale



Series: a better place, a better time [3]
Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: AU, Family Bonding, M/M, Mystery Trio, Road Trip, a bit of angst - but not a lot yet i promise!, bill has ominous plans? when does he NOT, god i am sorry for how long this will inevitably take, stanley is not the greatest person to take on a thirty-hour road trip, the plot is planned out i promise it just isnt really here yet, this is the biggest project i've ever planned for myself and i can already taste death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-17
Updated: 2016-02-22
Packaged: 2018-05-14 12:07:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 22,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5743237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tallykale/pseuds/tallykale
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Mystery Trio, 1976. Freshly graduated (well, two out of three isn't bad), on the road to their new home in Gravity Falls, and generally feeling pretty good about love, life, and the existence of cryptids.</p>
<p>The plans of demons, on the other hand, are an entirely different story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. feather in cap & the sun in the sand

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello everyone i'm tally kale and welcome to jackass (attempts to write a multichapter fanfiction)
> 
> in all honesty i'm really excited for this. it's my first foray into longer, more plot-heavy fic, and since i can't leave this particular AU alone i'm going to continue to put these poor boys through emotional hardships for fun and profit. just joking, i don't make any money off this, also it's the exact opposite of fun. thanks everyone i'll be here all year!
> 
> there's nothing really to warn for in this chapter. discussions of aromanticism in a time before a label for that was common, so there's a bit of heartache there. it's mostly just family-type bonding and road trip shenanigans, to be honest. enjoy!

The road stretches out ahead of them like the loop of some bygone giant’s cursive hand, ferrying them along into some new paragraph or footnote. The russet May sun is fading into the first notes of June. The Diablo roars along in the orange-warm light, the tension-taut air, and it feels like they’re really adults now, really independent, on a real road trip to start living in the real world.

And all Stanley’s contributed so far is a metric ton of awful, terrible, stomach-turning puns (and sometimes a spontaneous and equally as stomach-turning song).

“Hey, Sixer. I’d tell you a chemistry joke, but I know it wouldn’t get a _reaction_!” Cue finger guns. “Aaayy!”

Stanford has had it up to _here_ (he mentally takes a hand off the steering wheel and jabs fiercely at his own neck) with him. Honestly! He's been smacked in the face with an erratic dance move too many times to count, and after more than twenty years of life Stanley still can’t carry a tune to save it. Really, he’s being disgustingly immature, not to mention the distinct lack of awareness of something called _personal space_ ; Stanford rescinds the thought about them being real adults and instead labels Stanley a teenager, at best. Fiddleford is quiet in the back seat for the most part, but sometimes he lets out a traitorous laugh at one of Stanley’s jokes, so he’s no better.

All in all, though, it’s about what he expected when he embarked on a thirty-hour road trip with his brother and his boyfriend.

“You know why I _break into_ song so often? ‘Cause I can’t find the _key_!”

It’s 6:18 p.m. They left Arkansas nearly eight hours ago, after bidding a final farewell to that too-small dorm room they’d occupied together for three years (a time before Stanley was living there seems so distant and unreal), and to the university that was in all honesty the best thing that had ever happened to any of them. The funding for this trip was, of course, willingly provided by Backupsmore, after Stanford submitted a high-grade application and a promise of mentions in academic writings, and did just a little bit of sucking-up. Backupsmore was sad to see their brightest alumnus depart; they squeezed three speeches out of Stanford at the commencement ceremony and nearly, _nearly_ convinced him to stay on and start another doctorate (and where they say _convinced_ others might say _begged on their knees until he felt guilty enough to stop saying no_ , but that’s all semantics). Stanford was adamant, though, and with a cheque for his research grant in one hand and his admirable diploma in the other, he waved goodbye. The dean of students only cried for an hour.

Another flailing limb enters Stanford’s vicinity. He grimaces, and the movement makes perspiration roll down his face from where it had been collecting above his eyes. Maybe leaving in summer was a mistake, because the air conditioning in the Diablo (the _Stanleymobile_! Stanford can almost hear his brother shouting) was never quite up to par, and he’s pretty sure he’s lost about half his body weight in sweat. They rotate seats every few hours and getting up from the leather always peels off a layer of skin. But the summer air does lend a certain quality to the journey, setting every moment alight, making them feel at least a little bit like adventurers with feathers in their caps.

“You know why you should avoid cheap eye surgeons? They probably cut a lot of _corneas_! Right? Corners, get it?”

So now here he is: on his way to a small town whose name tastes like mysteries (Gravity Falls, the rhythm of it, the subtle ring of humour— it’s the kind of name to be said expectantly, or awedly) with the two people in the world he loves most (sappy, but true, despite Stanley’s current and forever obnoxiousness) to fulfill one of his wildest dreams (anomaly hunting, because who can honestly say they’ve never wanted to find the weird in the world?), and—

It’s all a bit terrifying, to be honest.

Like he always does when he’s scared, he falls to taking inventory.

If one were to catalogue the contents of the car (spoken in hypothetical, as if Stanford hadn’t leaned on the bonnet that morning with a notepad and ticked off each item as they were packed, as _if_ he hadn’t thoroughly double- and triple- and etcetera-checked the page throughout his shift in the passenger seat) then the list might look something like this:

  * Books and papers and graphs and instruments designed to measure weirdness as a quantifiable substance, designed by Stanford, engineered by Fiddleford, and named by Stanley. The Science Nerd-Box 2001! The Zapperoni and Cheese! Gizmotron 2.0! Yeah, he’s a creative genius.
  * Personal effects, i.e. money, identification, wallets, banjos. All the essentials. (As well as Stanley’s glasses, which he’s worn maybe once since moving in and then out with his brother. Stanford hangs on to them anyway.)


  * Maybe, if you look hard enough, ninety percent of a wardrobe of assorted clothes between the car’s three occupants, in various states of cleanliness according to which young man each article belongs to. Despite his organisational skills in other parts of his life, Stanford still falls short of enlightenment in the field of laundry. (Stanley: “These are my summer clothes. Summer paid for, summer not! True story.” Stanford: “I don’t think you paid for _any_ of these.” Fiddleford: “Are those my pants?”)


  * Sundry miscellaneous knick-knacks, the kind of ugly souvenirs one brings home from an interstate trip; a combined effort on the parts of Stanley and Fiddleford, who discovered their collective flair for finding Uglies in their second year of friendship and thereafter stuffed the dorm to the brim with them, much to the chagrin of Stanford.
  * More _sensible_ knick-knacks, thank you, such as photographs and posters of scientists and books laden with sentiment; a solitary effort by Stanford to balance the scale slightly more in his favour.
  * All of the furnishings that Stanley could surreptitiously lift from the dorm when they left, i.e. a desk lamp and a shelf ripped from the wall, the latter still with plaster flaking from its brackets.
  * Three strapping young men, or young men that each embody at least some aspect of strappingness. In no particular order:



Taking up the entire passenger seat and encroaching upon everywhere else is Stanley Pines, twenty-two years old no matter what his actions might say, enthusiasm and hair both unbridled and the latter tending dangerously towards mullet territory. This morning he woke up and felt ready for whatever the world could throw at him, then swallowed two pills and felt exactly the same. (A year ago, almost, Fiddleford succeeded in his gentle needling and Stanley went to a white office where someone in a crisp pressed shirt pronounced _manic depressive_ in clinical syllables, and told him to swallow the bottle of lithium to keep his head from alternately floating too far into the the clouds and sinking into the trenches of the ocean. At least, that’s what Stanley heard when he looked at the medication— _take this to fix you because there’s no other hope, I’m afraid_ — and he left the bottle alone on the bathroom shelf like something volatile until Fiddleford suggested, cautiously, that it might take the edges off the hard times, hmm? He took it one morning and stepped forward and leant on his friends as well, and discovered that a sense of balance helps keep your life on track, and he’s glad that he at least has the chance to take uncertain steps in the world and not in a hospital.) In any case, he feels _good_ , and he’s determined to enjoy the surreal departure from life that is a road trip for however long he can.

Stanley takes up space like it’s his job, legs spread at an angle in the passenger seat and arms constantly in motion, offbeat with the music or curling a hand into the semi-liquefied bag of candy in the centre console; he’s a slash of bright neon in the car, freedom unrestrained by the somewhat-convention of school and set loose upon the world for better or worse. (Probably worse, muse both Stanford and Fiddleford.) He seems to be having fun, at least, with the edgy thrill in his lungs when he sings along tunelessly, or the real and gleeful smile he pushes each godawful note and joke through. Stanley, more than any of them, has been wanting for something that tastes like the wild, and he relishes it through and through and turns it over in his mouth and picks it up bodily with each and every bump on the road. His warp and weft are tailored to the atmosphere of a road trip; his needles and threads work expertly around the event and fit it into the ever-unfolding tapestry of a person, the embroidery of becoming someone.

After every sign and turnoff they pass the build of it grows bigger in his heart— in all of their hearts— but in his most of all.

“You know why I wear short sleeves? I’m exercising my right to _bare arms_!”

Currently occupying the driver’s seat and looking incredibly put-upon is Stanford Pines, also twenty-two, why yes we _are_ twins, why yes I _do_ hate our father for giving us these names. He’s gripping the wheel so hard all twelve knuckles go white. Given that he’s had to put up with Stanley’s boisterous presence in such a small space for about eight hours already, he’s doing remarkably well in terms of keeping his temper checked. Behind the surface frustration, though, is a simmering anxiety; about the prospect of living properly independently, and whether he’ll be able to adequately use the research grant he’s been generously given, and really if this whole venture is a good idea at all and maybe he should just turn around and go back to college and start another PhD. At least he knows he’d be able to handle that.

Graduating with honors was expected, but finishing a PhD in just four years still makes him glow a little when he thinks about it. His parents had been thrilled, even if Dad hadn’t really cared until he heard the words _hundred thousand dollar grant_ , and even then he’d fallen back to gruff approval when Stanford had diplomatically informed him that research grants really are just for research. He’d explained the in-depth reports required and how he’d have to keep a tight rein on the money, so he wouldn’t be able to send any home, sorry Dad; the phone call had turned a little colder after that. The fact that Stanford had been home only a few scarce times in four years made it strained to begin with, though.

The sun draws lower and redder in the sky as the afternoon saunters into evening, and he flicks his eyes to his brother for an instant. Sometimes he still catches himself thinking bitterly about an accident that cost him a dream, and they’ve certainly had spats over the years that dredged up sour blood from old wounds, but he can generally say he’s happy to have his brother with him on the road to whatever new chapter this might be. Stanford thinks that, and then realises how sappy it sounds, and resolves never to say it out loud. Stanley thwacks him in the side of the head with an errant dance move. He sighs for the hundredth time, and wishes that Oregon would get a move on and hurry to where they are.

“Hey, Fiddlenerd’s surprisingly calm when he plays the banjo, right? Seems he’d have a lot to _fret_ about!”

In the back seat and trying to cover his treasonous laughing mouth is Fiddleford Hadron McGucket, twenty-three, who introduces himself with his full name every time he meets someone new because he’s grown to love the dissonance of it. A side-effect of knowing the Pines twins, he’s found, is that weirdness of all kinds starts fitting in niches everywhere, so you may as well embrace it. Another is that you gain an alarmingly good tolerance for shenanigans. That one comes in handy when capital-P Plans fall from the sky, or when your boyfriend works himself into a frenzy over something incredibly irrelevant.

At the moment, he’s wearing one of Stanford’s button-ups (mustard yellow, which should by all rights be a horrible colour on him, but the fact that it’s Stanford’s lends it a sort of kitschy charm) and trying to pretend he isn’t laughing at Stanley’s jokes. He can understand why Stanford is so irritated— but some of them are genuinely _funny_ , and even when they’re about him he can’t help but smile along. It’s a nice break from the venomous jokes at his expense that he’s heard out of the mouths of dozens of bullies and would-be friends, to have this good-natured ribbing come from a place of real caring. When he’d been driving earlier in the day, Stanley, sitting in the back, had kept up a running commentary of every other car they passed on the road, enthusiastically postulating about the stories of their drivers. (“Oh, _he_ has royally fucked up. It was supposed to be his weekend with the kids, see, but he forgot to pick them up after school, so he bought them a ton of candy each as a bribe so they won’t tell their mother. _And_ his date went badly— see the suit? There’s wine stains all down his front; he _definitely_ said the wrong thing. He’s rushing from a bad date to get his kids three hours late. You can see it in his eyes. The _suffering_.”) Stanford had sighed rebelliously after each tale, but Fiddleford had seen him twitch a smile once or twice. Now, he passes off the laugh as a cough and looks placidly into Stanford’s blazing eyes in the rear view mirror. He just barely resists the urge to say, smugly, “Don’t _fret_ , darling,” only because he thinks he’d probably lose a fair amount of blood if he did.

If Stanley and Stanford are the heart and brains of the trio, Fiddleford supposes he’s the bones. Or maybe the muscles, somehow. Either way, he holds them together in some fashion; he _is_ the reason the brothers are talking at all, he sometimes tells himself, feeling quite self-satisfied. But then, Stanley is the reason that he and Stanford are together, and _Stanford_ is the reason that he’s found a friend in Stanley that he can genuinely trust, so in the end they’re all an essential part of each other. He reflects back on the name he offhandedly gave the three of them— the Mystery Trio— and thinks that it fits, and that there’s nobody he’d rather be part of a trio with in the world. Over every break that required them to leave the dorm, they’d situate themselves firmly within the McGucket clan home, and the effortless functioning as a team never left, so he reasons that it isn’t just born of necessity in the tiny room they shared; hopefully it’ll continue into their new home (home! What an altogether terrifying and heartwarming prospect) and keep them orbiting for the foreseeable future.

Although, maybe Stanley’s going to get himself kicked out of the car before then.

“Oh! Oh! This one is my favourite. What’s green, fuzzy, and would kill you if it fell out of a tree and landed on your head?”

There’s silence, but for an unspeakably exhausted sigh.

“A pool table!”

 _That_ punchline gets a result. “I— What? That wasn’t even a _pun_ , Stanley! It was just— it doesn’t make any sense!” says Stanford exasperatedly, marking the first joke in four hours he’s dignified with a response. He looks as if he’s about to tear the steering wheel off the column. Fiddleford goes very silent.

Stanley apparently doesn’t care about his impending death. “Maybe you just don’t under _stan_ d my jokes, Sixer. Hey-ohh! Name pun!” he cries, slapping a knee gleefully. “That was a pretty out _stan_ ding one, if I do say so myself. Wouldn’t you agree, Fiddleford?” he says, dangerously sweet, looking over his shoulder at the back seat. Fiddleford shakes his head frantically to indicate he’d _very_ much like to remain a neutral party here. _Let me be Switzerland_ , he thinks, feverishly. _Please don’t start an actual war_.

“Don’t recruit him! Fidds, please don’t indulge his terrible—”

“Oh, don’t act so _stan_ doffish, Ford. We all know you can with _stan_ d much worse humour than this. Resi _stan_ ce is fu—”

“Right! That’s it,” Stanford says, overly upbeat, as he starts the venomous click of the right-hand indicator, “we are having dinner and swapping drivers. I need a nap. There’s a limit to how much constant Stanley I can take; I’m only _human_.”

Fiddleford pats his shoulder consolingly from the back seat.

“Oho! Nice one,” says Stanley, grin like a switchblade. “Con _stan_ t, Sixer? I might have to pass my crown over to you.”

If looks could kill, then the glare that Stanford gives him at that moment murders him extravagantly and with great relish, pockets his cash and watch, disembowels the corpse, tidies the blood and entrails, buries him in a shallow grave, dances a disrespectful jig atop it, and then returns to the scene of the crime to grieve and participate in the investigation of his poor brother’s mysterious death slash disappearance. (All signs point to the butler!)

For his part, Stanley pokes out his tongue and looks resolutely unrepentant. Unrepen _stan_ t, even.

They pull into the parking lot of a diner; someone stumbling across the wall yells an incoherent phrase at them and Stanley replies in kind. Stanford cuts the engine with a stutter and slumps back in his seat, rubbing at his eyes, and then tiredly gets out of the Diablo. In contrast, Stanley looks almost gleeful as his shoes meet the ground: he’s in his element here, in the forever 3 a.m. haze of an unknown restaurant, the same one that’s at every highway turnoff with the same tired hands working the register and the same ambiguous stain in the corner of the ceiling (and yet you can never recall the name of the chain, or if it’s even a franchise at all; when you check a map later there’s no eateries for miles around). They all shiver a little at the breeze that runs across their slightly sweaty skin.

Inside is lit by a sickly glow; they shuffle into a booth and a waitress that looks dead on her feet comes by with laminated menus. She looks them all in the eyes one by one and places a menu in front of each of them, not even bothering to give a falsely energetic greeting before turning lethargically on her heel and leaving them to their devices.

“I like the look of this Early Bird Pancake Stack,” says Stanley. He’s sitting alone on his side of the sticky table, eagerly raking his eyes over the tacky-looking specials.

“That’s a breakfast, Stan. It’s almost 7 in the evening.” Stanford is barely conscious, but still has enough kick in him to nip Stanley’s potential mischief in the bud. “Please, just get a burger or something. Don’t cause a scene.”

Fiddleford hums and lets his boyfriend rest a weary head on his shoulder. “I’ll just have something small. A grilled cheese and a coffee. What about you, dear?”

Despite its obvious bony nature, Fiddleford’s shoulder seems to be acting as a fairly good pillow for Stanford. “Mm. I’ll have the same, but no coffee,” he murmurs, eyes nearly closed but still keeping a trained focus on Stanley.

The subject of his stare doesn’t seem to notice the intense scrutiny being laid upon him; Stanley huffs about not being allowed to have pancakes for dinner and starts making the case for a banana split instead. “It’s got fruit in it, so it’s healthy, and the sugar’ll keep me awake for my shift of driving. Also,” he says with an eyebrow raised, “it’s objectively the most delicious thing on this menu that I’m _allowed_ to have at this time of day, or whatever.” Stanford blinks at him.

“Look, I’m far too exhausted right now to play the part of the responsible guardian, so as long as you _behave yourself_ , Stanley,” he replies in a monotone, “then you can have a banana split for dinner.” Stanley looks like he’s about to explode with joy. Stanford lets his eyes close and leans into Fiddleford’s body with a sigh.

The waitress comes back with a clipboard; she looks at them for a long moment, and then makes an impatient gesture with her pen. “Well? What’ll it be, fellas?” Her voice is raspy and she has the air of someone working overtime for less than minimum wage.

Fiddleford cuts in before Stanley can open with a crass joke. “Two grilled cheese sandwiches, please, and a black coffee for me,” he says, and casts a worried glance across the table before finishing, “and a banana split for him.” Stanley winks at the waitress; she nods once, mechanically, and leaves without writing any of it down.

Stanford says “Do you think this red stuff on the table is blood?” and falls asleep. They wait for the food in silence.

When it finally arrives, carried by a different dead-looking teenager, Stanford wakes up enough to eat three-quarters of his sandwich and then curl into Fiddleford’s side; Fiddleford looks fondly down at him despite the resulting loss of movement in his right arm. Stanley demolishes the banana split in about ten seconds and eyes the remains of his brother’s food.

The banana split turns out to be delicious, the sandwiches less so. Fiddleford is pretty sure the coffee was made with dirt. He knocks it back in two goes anyway, sacrificing tastebuds for a hit of caffeine that should hopefully last him until they can find an adequate motel to stop at.

They pay for the food (correction: _Fiddleford_ pays for the food, while supporting Stanford’s body and keeping a watchful eye on a worryingly energetic Stanley) and leave the diner, all three of them looking forward to a real bed at the end of the night; it’s only twenty past seven, though, and their goal of three ten-hour days looks a lot less desirable now. Why couldn’t the epicentre of weirdness in the States be in Arkansas instead? Stanley’s sure he saw enough cryptids and anoma-whatevers at Backupsmore alone to justify studying there, but _no_ , his brother has to uproot them and make them trek all the way to some hick town in the Pacific Northwest.

As he unlocks the car and helps Fiddleford to nudge a sleeping Stanford inside, though, he can’t really find it in him to be that angry.

After they fold Stanford into the back seat and rest him at an angle that hopefully won’t give him too bad of a neck cramp when he wakes up, they have a silent argument over who’s driving the last shift. It involves lots of head-shaking and overwrought mouthing of words.

“I’m fine to drive, Stanley,” Fiddleford says, breaking the silence in a quiet-harsh whisper. “I drank that garbage coffee for a reason.” He already has a hand on the handle of the driver’s door, the other braced on Stanley’s shoulder.

“It’s my turn, though! _And_ my car. Does that licence plate say Fiddsmobile, hmm?” retorts Stanley, stubborn as ever in the pointless things, while trying to bat away Fiddleford’s hand. It’s turned surprisingly dark in the short time they were inside, and a few stars see their way to shining in the sky above; they’ll likely only drive for another two hours, or until a sufficiently hygienic motel appears. “Does it? No? Well, get in shotgun.”

For a moment, Fiddleford looks like he might argue about it; then, his eyes flick to Stanford breathing peacefully in the back seat and he draws back. “Alright. But tell me if you need a break. You’ll be on a sugar crash before you know it, and I’d rather that didn’t lead to a _real_ crash,” he says as he resignedly walks around to the other side of the car.

“No promises,” says Stanley with a wry grin, but he does nod seriously while he says it. The car starts with a purr, and they roll slowly from the parking lot and back onto the road; the tacky neon above the drive-thru flickers behind them like a fluttering wave goodbye. For a brief, absurd moment, Stanley considers waving back.

They’re both silent for a long time, listening to the steady in-out of Stanford’s breathing, watching the stars slowly wink into existence. It’s calming, like the high-strung energy of the day is spinning out harmlessly into the atmosphere, carrying the fire from Stanley’s mind and setting each individual star alight.

“That banana split was fucking amazing,” Stanley murmurs wistfully.

Fiddleford stifles a laugh in his sleeve. “Clearly that diner makes better desserts than beverages. The coffee tasted worse than the mud milkshakes I used to make myself as a kid.” He lets his head fall back with a sigh. There’s something in it that makes him sound decades older, a bone-deep weariness that he almost never lets show. He lets his eyes close for a moment, takes a moment to let himself breathe in the starry sky, and then shakes himself back to life. “Y’alright there, Stanley?” he says, more for the sake of saying something than anything else.

Stanley looks at him sideways. “Yeah. You?” He’s never too blatant in his caring, but he _listens_ , and he’s heard scores of those singularly tired sighs; coupled with the few fractures that sometimes slowly seep into Fiddleford’s carefully-kept front of calmness, Stanley can guess at some of the anxious-frenzy feelings he methodically keeps at bay. Fiddleford worries and worries and worries, but never enough about himself.

“I’m fine,” he says. It’s not really a lie.

Stanford mumbles something in his sleep and Fiddleford instinctively turns to check on him, mouth softly curling up in a smile at the sight of his partner’s serene face. Even now, the feeling of being a part of Stanford’s life is a warm heat under his ribcage, buoying him along; the idea of being not only liked and accepted, but _loved_ by someone so wholeheartedly amazing— he could wax poetic about it for hours, but Stanley would make fun of him. Not _cruelly_ — Stanley’s never spiteful in his teasing, not to his friends— but sometimes it’s nice to moon over your boyfriend without the exaggerated kissing noises in the background. Fiddleford gives a sigh that might (maybe, just the tiniest bit) sound a touch besotted.

True to form, Stanley jabs him with an elbow and taunts, “ _Someone’s_ all a-smitten by Doctor Snoozeface over there, hmm?” (Stanley refuses to let anyone forget that Stanford having a PhD opens up a whole _world_ of doctorate-related ribbing.) He raises an eyebrow at Fiddleford’s unimpressed face. “Sorry, sorry,” he says with a laugh after a moment, and then cocks his head to one side. His face softens. “You really love him, though, don’t you?”

Fiddleford splutters. Trust Stanley to go from mocking to heartfelt fast enough to give a man whiplash. “I— Um, well, that is—” he says, uselessly, and then slaps Stanley on the shoulder. “Shut up. Yes. I hate you.” He puts his face in his hands to cover the rising blush in his cheeks and sighs again. “I guess I’m pretty obvious about it, aren’t I? Is it weird for me to be all gone over your brother like this?”

Truthfully, Stanley does find it a touch weird ( _anything_ to do with his brother is weird, but that’s a given), but it’s not because it’s Stanford. It’s more to do with the strange curl of otherness he feels in his sternum when there’s any sort of romance in the air, pressing in on his lungs and reminding him that he doesn’t— has never, probably could never— know what it feels like to be part of that. “Mmm,” he hums, as a starting point, and then steels himself for the drop into a Deep And Meaningful Conversation. He looks out at the road, at the constellations coming into sight above, at his fingers firm on the wheel, and decides that he can trust Fiddleford. “Can I… Can I talk about something that’s pretty— pretty personal? Are we close enough friends for that?” he asks, and waits anxiously. He doesn’t know whether he wants to hear yes or no.

Fiddleford looks startled at the second sudden change of tone in as many minutes, but nods earnestly all the same. “‘Course we are,” he says softly, then, “I’m pretty sure that personal conversations are a requisite part of road trips, anyway.” Stanley laughs, and looks intensely vulnerable. Stanford shifts in his sleep. The road curves slowly, vastly, to the right.

Stanley feels like he’s baring his soul to the elements. Maybe he’ll die of exposure before the embarrassment catches up with him.

“There was…” he starts. “Back in Glass Shard Beach, there was this girl. Carla McCorkle. We went to school together, and me ‘n her would hang out a lot at this one diner a lot… I don’t remember ever asking her out, but everyone kind of assumed we were a thing. And maybe we were? I dunno,” he sighs, shoulders drawing in slightly. “She was great, and funny, and I loved spending time with her, but it never felt like…”

He trails off and his eyes flick momentarily away from the road to look at his brother’s sleeping form in the rear view mirror. Stanford looks fairly solidly asleep, chest rising and falling in a soporous rhythm with the passing streetlights. He looks younger. More vulnerable.

(A few years ago, Stanley slept like that— angled in the back seat and lit by dim yellow, the weight of the wide world on his shoulders. If it weren’t for a phone call and the capacity for forgiveness and his brother’s worn-raw trust, maybe that’s where he’d still be.)

“Never felt like what, Stanley?” Fiddleford prods gently, pulling him back to the present. Stanley glances sidelong at him, takes in the soft concern there.

“Like… like all the songs and movies said it’d feel like,” Stanley finally says. “I mean— I liked Carla a lot, and we must’ve seemed like the picture of young love to everyone else; it was pretty well accepted that we were together and all, but. I never felt like I _liked_ liked her.” He laughs shallowly. “God, I sound like a fucking middle schooler. And that’s the problem— I’ve never felt like that about _anyone_ , never had a crush or anything. Carla was the closest I ever got, and even with her it was just like— friendship. And for a while I just thought, okay, maybe she wasn’t The One, but everyone else around me was talking about how amazing it is to be _in love_ , or what-the-fuck-ever, and I never felt it. So. There’s my malfunction.” His voice goes quiet and soft towards the end. “It’s— it probably doesn’t even matter, I explained it badly—”

“No, no,” says Fiddleford quickly, “I get it. I mean— I can’t understand _exactly_ what it feels like, but I get where you’re coming from, at least.”

Stanley tries to grin, but just looks intensely grateful instead. “I— that means a lot. That you’re listening at all,” he says. The car rumbles, as if in reassurance. “I mean. Do you think there’s a reason I’m like this?” His voice breaks, almost pathetically, near the end. _Do you think anyone else has ever felt the same_ , he doesn’t ask. _Do you think I’m broken,_ he doesn’t ask.

There’s a lot of things Stanley doesn’t ask, and a lot of things he never will.

Fiddleford frowns slightly and purses his lips, trying to measure the right ratio of honesty to kindness. “I… Well, I don’t really know, and I’m no psychologist or nothing, so I can’t provide much of a professional opinion. I’m not in your head; I can’t feel exactly what you feel. But as a person— as your _friend_ , Stanley— I’d say that everyone’s different, and that don’t make any one way of feeling things wrong.” He pauses to gather his scattered thoughts. “You’re not a bad person for not _like_ liking this girl, y’know?” he says, making lazy air quotes around the word ‘like’, “and I’d make a healthy wager that you aren’t the first one to ever feel like this. Human experience— it can make you feel hellishly alone at times, but there’s six billion odd people out there, so the chances of someone being in a similar situation is pretty high. And as for a reason?” There he shuts his eyes again for a breath. “Sometimes, I reckon there _is_ no reason for why people are the way they are. We just gotta sort out what we _can_ know from what we were never meant to.”

That spiel, spoken in a soft southern lilt and underscored by the muted sounds of car and road and the wide endless land— it _doesn’t_ make Stanley cry, shut _up_ , he isn’t crying. He just has something in his eye. Some words drifted over and got sentiment stuck in his retinas.

“...Thanks, Fiddleford,” he says when his voice isn’t in danger of wobbling. He casts an uneasy look into the mirror, over his brother’s still-peaceful form. “Can… can we keep this between us for now? S’not that I don’t trust Ford, but I…” he trails off aimlessly, and Fiddleford seems to understand what he doesn’t know how to say, somehow.

“Sure thing.” The car is quiet again, companionably. “By the way, does it bother you when Stanford and I are all— you know,” Fiddleford says, flushing. “Because we can tone it down around you if you need.”

Stanley snorts and shakes his head. “No, no, feel free to be as sappy and awful as you like. It’s just— I think part of why I felt weird about it is not knowing _why_. And I still don’t really have a concrete reason, but it’s nice to know that you don’t think I’m wrong.” And Fiddleford nods, and pats his shoulder where he slapped it earlier, and settles more comfortably into his seat.

If they just stepped a little further to the yawning precipice of Deep Conversation Topics, full to the brim with all of their respective tics and tripwires, they might start talking about the way Fiddleford finds himself tapping out patterns on his hands that he can’t stop for fear of destroying some circular design in his head, or how the anxious thoughts can almost take on form and edge him closer to a terrifyingly bad decision, or the fact that even now he’s convinced that he doesn’t deserve any of the grace he’s been given in life— but they fall just short of it, and stay on the rocky cliffside between Talking About Love and Holding Impromptu Therapy Sessions. At least it’s comfortable, especially when you’re there with someone you can trust.

It really isn’t that Stanley doesn’t trust his brother. It’s just that— being next to someone for your entire young life, and sharing so much with them, and being so close to them that you may as well be half of one whole person— it’s not _suffocating_ , but sometimes they’re too near to know some things. Sometimes you feel naked even _thinking_ about confiding something in them, because they’ve seen you at your best and your worst. He’ll tell Ford eventually, he thinks, but telling people on his own terms makes the whole mess seem a bit more manageable.

They don’t talk much for the rest of the drive, but Stanley smiles more, and Fiddleford feels like he’s carrying a tiny star in his throat: the feeling of being a confidant, he thinks. The feeling of being trusted. Above them, the sky grows darker and brighter all at once, and constellations sew themselves together; they’re scared and all a little bit alone in the world, and Stanley thinks that maybe nobody really knows what everything means, or how to be an adult, and he feels better. In the back, Stanford’s breathing keeps the world turning at a steady rhythm.

It’s edging towards 10 p.m. when they finally pass a sign that implores them to stay at the upcoming motel. (Three and a half stars! No murders in recent memory! Not haunted, we swear!) Stanley and Fiddleford look at each other and shrug.

Stanley parks the Diablo and, with great relish, shouts “Wakey- _wakey_ , Sixer!” at a volume a few notches below thunderous. Stanford jolts up, tries to stand, hits his head on the roof, and falls back to the seat with his eyes wide, all within the space of about half a second. When he comes to his senses, Stanley is already cackling his way out of the door. Fiddleford glares at Stanley’s back and offers Stanford an apologetic smile.

“What’s the time?” Stanford slurs, rubbing his eyes and cracking his joints as he creaks out of the car. He thinks, not for the first time, that he doesn’t envy Stanley’s life on the streets, and that nobody deserves to wake up with that many body pains. Fiddleford chivalrously holds the door open.

“Quarter to ten. Sleep alright?” he replies dryly, with a quirked eyebrow which makes it clear that the question is sarcastic.

“Ha-ha, Fidds,” says Stanford, standing upright. He blinks forcefully. “I feel even more tired than when I fell asleep. That’s just unfair.”

Fiddleford pats his hand, and they hurry to catch up with Stanley. “There there, darling. You’ll be in a three-star bed soon enough,” he soothes as they walk into the yellow-green lobby. A world-weary receptionist looks up when they enter.

“Three and a _half_ star, thank you!” says the receptionist indignantly.

Paying for a room and getting a key seems a little blurry even while it’s happening, like the strung-out buzz of the day is catching up with all of their brains. (Fiddleford forgets how to count money for a solid minute.) They trudge down the hallway blearily.

“Do you think _that_ red stuff on the wall is blood?” says Stanford. (At the diner, it had turned out to be jam, and he’d felt a bit disappointed.)

“No,” says Fiddleford, at the same time as Stanley says “Probably.”

The room is underwhelming, as motel rooms often are. ( _There isn’t even any maybe-blood in here_ , Stanford almost protests.)

Fiddleford _immediately_ claims the first shower. No matter how selfless he may be in literally everything else, he likes his showers hot and punctual, and won’t hesitate to fight for the cause. Left feeling a bit aimless, the twins each sit down on a bed; Stanley kicks his legs against the wheezy bedsprings until his brother gives him a Look. In the bathroom, the shower spray rattles, and Fiddleford starts his own— relatively unique— brand of singing in the shower.

They look at each other like they’re skirting around an issue; like hunted prey, which isn’t the most heartening thing to find yourself being compared to.

The wallpaper is peeling in one corner and Stanford fixes his gaze on it as he tries to wake himself up. The beige paisley isn’t doing him any favours in that department, though, and he looks for something else to focus on. The off-white bedspread. A surprisingly modern-looking lamp. Stanley, looking tense and ready to flee.

Stanford sighs, quietly. No time like the present to jump off a metaphorical roof.

“So…” he starts, which he figures is a good a place to start as any. (A showtune leaps unbidden in his mind and says no, really, you should start at _do: a deer, a female deer,_ and follow it along until you get to _so: a needle pulling thread_ ; he’s somewhat taken aback. When has he ever watched _The Sound of Music_? When has _anyone_ ever watched _The Sound of Music_?)

Judging by the wary look Stanley gives him, though, he wasn’t expected to start anywhere at all; not for the first time he remembers that his thoughts aren’t broadcast to everyone around him, and he needs to provide context when he says things. This might be less breaking the ice and more plummeting into subzero waters and contracting hypothermia.

“I… wasn’t asleep the entire time, Stan,” he says, after gathering up all of his confidence. “In the car, I mean,” he clarifies unnecessarily, and clears his throat. “When you were talking about, uh. Love.”

He tries to keep his tone light, but Stanley still sucks in a breath and bites down hard on it. His hands (which had always been bigger than Stanford’s, irrationally, even with the extra width afforded by a sixth finger, and somehow that hybrid memory-observation makes him think, _oh, I_ am _glad he’s here_ ) clench like he’s about to wind up a punch— and then the tension dissipates helplessly and he slumps.

“Do— do _you_ think I’m broken, then?” he asks, voice tiny and indigo-blue. It sounds like papercuts in the air. The motel room positively drips with atmosphere, in the narrow-crooked walls of it.

If Stanley speaks in surface wounds, then Stanford probably causes internal bleeding when he half-shouts, “No! No, of course not, Stanley, I— hell, I thought I might have been the same for a while, before you pulled my head out of the general regions of my ass—” He’s rambling. The words tangle up in his eyeteeth. “Sorry, but I— it doesn’t make you broken. No two people will ever feel what we quantify as ‘love’ in exactly the same way, and not feeling it at all— the romantic kind, at least, the one that people commercialise— that doesn’t make you broken. It makes you _you_ , and you don’t need to love someone a certain way to be worthy of respect and care and, yes, love in return. That isn’t how it works.” And if his words sound rehearsed then it’s a trick of the light because he’s only barely weighing each sentence as he goes, talking as his mind hastily turns. “If you fall in love one day, then I’ll be happy for you, and if you never do, then I’ll be here all the same. I don’t think anyone really even fully knows what love _is_. I sure don’t understand it— me, who has somehow floundered through a lasting three-year relationship!— past the flowery feelings I get in my heart or wherever, and that I enjoy spending time with Fiddleford.”

That’s true, no matter how you slice it: he’s carried out experiments and studies in the name of furthering science’s unerring grasp of everything under the sun, but the actual concept of love still escapes him.

For once, though, in this thing, he’s content to _not_ understand it; it’s unlike him (a scientist who doesn’t push the limits of his knowledge in every facet of his life, how disgraceful!), but maybe he’s just growing as a person. That happens, right?

Stanford continues, finding his rhythm hesitatingly: “Even if you don’t fit into one of the prepackaged notions of love, or— or _romance_ , even— that doesn’t make you any less a person. You’re still my brother, and my friend, and you’re still uncannily good at predicting who dies in slasher movies, and you still make Plans that’ll change the world one day, and you’re still the most likely of all of us to be an active participant on either side of the apocalypse.” He’s risen from the bed, now, and is gesturing emphatically. Stanley looks intimidated. “None of that changes because you weren’t _in love_ with Carla McCorkle, Stanley. You liked spending time with her? Then it was worth it, true love or no,” says Stanford, and apparently that seems to be his upper limit on impassioned speeches for the evening, because he sinks back onto the bed looking winded. Fiddleford yodels gently from the bathroom.

“And you don’t,” Stanley says, frowning down at his knuckles in the relative silence, “hate me for not telling you first? This feels like the kind of thing you talk about with a twin. I don’t know. I’m sorry, anyway.” He’s evasive and slides his gaze anywhere but Stanford’s eyes; now, he folds in on himself, like an awaited reprimand. Now, he seems muted and dull.

“I— what? Why would I hate you for that?” replies Stanford, baffled, frowning equally as hard at his brother’s knuckles, as if the reason for this leap of logic could be found in the chafed skin there, in the tight clenched geometry of fingers. “Being a twin doesn’t mean that we _only_ have each other. It’s more that— that you _can_ tell me everything, but you don’t _have_ to, and I trust you, and at the end it might turn out to be us against the world,” he says. (Or us against each other with the world placing bets; in the event of twin fallout, find a shelter immediately, and take the side with the least potential casualties, he thinks, morbidly.) “Before the apocalypse comes, though, you’re allowed to have other friends. You can have people apart from me in your life. And that’s why I’m so glad you’re friends with Fidds— I mean, apart from the fact that we seem to be inexorably stuck together at this point so it’s better that you tolerate him, at least— because I know that sometimes it’s terrifying to share personal things with someone you’ve grown up with and, ah,” he looks sheepish, “fought with and all that. But you two are good for each other. And I love you both, and I’m glad that you have— well, a friend. A real one. Not just one of circumstance, because I turned out to be pretty bad at that anyway,” he finishes, feeling a bit off centre, like he should have had a stronger thesis. Didn’t he learn anything from writing his dissertation, from his application for a research grant? Apparently not, says the clumsy string of words hung in the air above them like fireflies. He’s still as awkward as ever in the things that matter. “I should apologise, really, for eavesdropping. Putting up false pretences of sleep.”

Stanley looks up, eyes like raw charcoal in their bare honesty, and tries to smile. He gives it a heroic effort, but it just ends up pinning one cheek to his gums lopsidedly and leaves him looking pained, or panicked, or both, topped with the frantic air of one caught without something to say. His edges seem to blur in the shabby motel light, and then he bows his head almost reverently (almost like a prayer that neither of them have faith enough for, to the empty shells of dead stars above) and cries for a few seconds.

It’s a quiet affair. Tears roll from the corners of his eyes and cut an efficient path towards the corners of his mouth and then fall to all the rest of his threadbare corners and edges and planes, and he looks stuck for a moment like the crook of an elbow, and then he takes a deep breath and stops crying. The moment feels like a shed skin, sloughed onto the stained carpet and leaving both of them soft-scaled and shining under the moon.

“Stanley,” says Stanford quietly. It’s like a habit to say his name, now, a reflection of their first bizarre reconnection. “Stanley. It’s okay.” (When has anything ever really been okay when someone says that?)

But it seems to work on some level, because the look on Stanley’s face turns tender and he straightens up a little, meeting his brother’s eyes and remembering the trust he sees there.

Fiddleford comes out of the bathroom still towelling off his hair. He walks headlong into the palpable _atmosphere_ of the room and stops short. “Did I miss something important?” he says, and drips onto the carpet.

Something twists, then, in the sentiment of the moment, and even though saying that it’s okay usually means the binary opposite, Stanley finds a weight rolling from his shoulders like so many heavy stones, and he _smiles_ , really and genuinely and fluorescent in the dim lighting. He looks like a kid again.

“Just a little brother-brother bonding,” he says, and reaches over to punch Stanford in the arm. He looks over his brother’s shoulder at Fiddleford, who still looks bemused, and gives him a raw-hopeful Look, and that seems to convey everything essential about the situation. Fiddleford beams quietly back at him. Stanford rubs his arm and looks offended. Then he smiles in that crooked way of his, and they all feel a little triumphant, that they’ve survived a third of a veritable quest across the country with no lasting injuries; in that shabby room they cross their ankles and stay up talking until nobody can keep their eyes open, and each one of them falls asleep with their lungs a little lighter, a little more golden.

(The motel does turn out to be haunted, in the end. Stanley throws free soap samples at the wall and threatens to weaponise his puns until the poltergeist shuts up.)

* * *

 

The second morning of their journey starts with Stanley belting _Disco Girl_ at the top of his lungs, and that pretty much sets the tone for the rest of the day.

Everything in the room is hovering when Stanford opens his eyes. Apparently the spirits ensconced in the drywall of the motel are _also_ really into BABBA, and Stanley will take any opportunity to perform for an audience. The furniture abstractly dances to the beat of the song.

“I’m really not in the mood for an exorcism,” Stanford says, but he does it anyway; these particular vestiges of dead souls are quite complacent, and only need a little encouragement to go into the light. The beds fall back to earth with a mighty crash. Stanley pouts at the loss of his newfound fans.

They escape the motel at high and dubiously legal speeds, and are quickly back on the road; everything looks about the same as the yesterday, and that surreal feeling of a time loop settles back over their minds. Stanford contemplates a highway fashioned after a moebius strip. Maybe there’s something built in the asphalt of every road, so that after you spend more than an hour driving over it it strings backwards through all the memories of similar roads, and everything starts tasting like deja vu.

Stanley’s jokes didn’t get any better overnight, for one thing. They all feel horribly familiar.

(“Y’know, I’ve always wanted to get into theatre. My debut will be a performance about puns— it’s a _play on words_!”

You didn’t hear about those three huge holes in the ground? Well, well, _well_!”

“So this guy with a premature ejaculation problem comes out of nowhere—” “ _Stanley_!”

“Heh, you know what? This is my tenth pun of the day, and I’d hoped that at least one of them would make you laugh. But clearly, _no pun in ten did_.”

That about sums it up, really.)

The day passes in snapshots, certain moments crystallising amongst the ocean-brine of the rest. Later, when he reflects on them, a few stand out in their sentimentality or absurdity, pasted into some kind of scrapbook in his head.

In a vague, sort of wobbly chronological order, it goes like this:

Stanley drives first, because he’s territorial about his car, and he screams down the highway with the radio at full blast. It’s playing _Murderous Matriarch_ , and while Stanford has always had a soft spot for Freddie Quicksilver, his brother really isn’t doing the song any favours by tunelessly yelling the words out the window. The drivers in the cars passing them send a few pointed glares at the Diablo. For their troubles, they receive a rude gesture and the next few lines of the song at increased volume.

That strategy turns out to be a bad idea when one of the drivers recognises his car and face (underneath the mullet and peach fuzz) as those of Steve Pinington, from whom he bought a large quantity of Rip-Offs from a few years ago. Grudges have an uncanny memory. “Pinington! I used those bandaids on _delicate areas_ , asshole!” he shouts by way of greeting. He has dark hair and an unfortunate moustache, and those are the only features Stanford finds himself remembering as they suddenly accelerate to escape velocity and Stanley yells “You’ll never take me alive!”

They finally slow down a few miles later, or maybe a few rotations of the earth, when Stanley’s sure he’s left the unsatisfied customer behind. Fiddleford clutches wordlessly at his chest. Stanford feels like he might have left some of his internal organs behind.

“That was fun,” says Stanley. “Anyone want some candy?”

.

In the early afternoon, after they’ve stopped for lunch (no banana splits this time, though Stanley did haggle his way into a plate of waffles), the car is blessedly quiet. Stanley seems to have briefly run dry of one-liners, and the radio hasn’t played a song he likes for a while; rather than feeling relieved, though, Stanford sits up rigidly in the back seat and braces himself for something to come along and spontaneously combust in the face of this fragile peace and quiet. Fiddleford doesn’t seem to have noticed anything; he’s still driving steadily, a touch below the speed limit, keeping well within his lane. But Stanford can _feel_ something building, terrifyingly, in the humid air circulating through the windows cracked open. Something _loud_ and _possibly destructive_ is about to happen.

The start of that loud and destructive thing comes about in the form of Stanley declaring “I _really_ need a piss,” and Fiddleford replying “I _told_ you to go when we were filling up the car,” but he pulls docilely off the road all the same. They’re somewhere green-brown, trees lining up sparse past the gravel.

When they crawl to a stop, spitting gravel from the rear tyres, Stanley slides out of the passenger seat and quickly disappears behind a tree. Fiddleford sighs and presses the heels of his palms into his eyes. “I wish this country weren’t so damn _big_ ,” he says, tiredly. “We’re barely even halfway there, and we’ve still got another full day of driving tomorrow.” His eyes close for a moment, and he sits there lit by the sunlight, caught in an angle between sleeping and wakefulness, suddenly full of so much beauty and weariness, and Stanford thinks, _Oh_. Just that.

“Do you want me or Stanley to take over for a bit?” he asks, gently, leaning forward to put a hand on his partner’s narrow shoulder. He tries to imbue the question with all the thoughts he can’t put words to, and he _thinks_ Fiddleford understands, because he turns and smiles, and then pulls Stanford forward by the chin and kisses him, once, softly.

“I’m fine, darling,” Fiddleford says. Stanford gives a weak, infatuated little smile, and goes to say something almightily sappy and gooey, like he’d never say with his brother within earshot.

And then Stanley screams.

Stanford is out of the car first (though he does hit his head on the way), yelling “ _Stanley_!” He crashes through the negligible undergrowth as Stanley screams again, higher-pitched and wordless. Fiddleford is right behind him with the baseball bat Stanley keeps in the Diablo for _special occasions_. They round a corner and find themselves behind a thick tree, peppered with mushrooms at its base, and—

“You sparkly _dick_! Give me back my pants!” says Stanley. Stanford and Fiddleford blink at the scene before them.

Stanley’s on the ground, legs akimbo and boxers sagging, engaged in a vicious game of tug-of-war with a tiny floating figure. The rope and stakes both seem to be his pants. On closer inspection, his opponent is a fairy of some kind; it’s screaming obscenities at him and digging its tiny claws into the denim it has in a death grip.

“Um,” says Fiddleford. He lowers the baseball bat in confusion. “What exactly am I looking at here?”

“You’re looking at a _filthy pants-thief_ , you knucklehead!” Stanley cries. “Hurry up and punt it into the fucking treetops!” He sounds absolutely fed up with the entire situation, which is a pretty fair reaction, all things considered; his blazing eyes alternately fix their gaze on the fairy and on an indecisive Fiddleford.

“But I don’t want to _hurt_ the poor thing,” Fiddleford says, gesturing helplessly at the creature. It’s still swearing shrilly and has moved to spitting what looks like acid down at Stanley. “It’s so tiny!”

“Try and knock it out, Fidds,” interjects Stanford, his mind instantly switching from protective brother to paranormal researcher. “I’d _love_ to study it. Stanley, have you been able to observe any of its abilities? Anatomy?”

Stanley fixes him with a deadpan look. “Sixer, this thing snuck up on me from behind and yanked my pants off for _no justifiable reason_ ,” he says flatly. “I have never been less interested in the anatomy of fairies.” The fairy hisses at him and takes advantage of his momentarily lowered defences to give an enormous wrench to the pants. They split in two at the seams.

Apparently that’s enough to satisfy the fairy; it cackles away into the forest, trailing its half of the jeans below its shimmering trail. Stanley looks forlornly at his solitary pant leg.

“Uh,” starts Stanford. “Sorry about your pants?”

.

Sometime between 4 p.m. and midnight, they drive past a river, and the reflection of the sky on the water’s surface makes Stanford’s ever-turning mind pause for a moment in its machinations, and he thinks about boats, and sailing, and travelling the world. When he glances away from the road to look at Stanley dozing in the back seat, he feels an incomparable stab of guilt deep in his gut.

.

That night, they sleep in a motel that isn’t haunted, but the cleaner they edge by in the hall bears more than a passing resemblance to a vampire.

* * *

The third day feels simultaneously the same and impossibly different.

For one, the anticipation is finally almost tangible in the air; from the moment that Stanford opens his eyes in the morning his heart is veritably _buzzing_ with excitement. (A voice in the back of his mind wonders whether he shouldn’t get that looked at.) He looks across the room to Stanley’s bed, and then at the floor, which is where Stanley _actually_ is, a crumpled mass of limbs tangled in the sheets. Admirably, he’s still asleep.

Fiddleford is already awake and vertical, and probably has been for about half an hour at this point; he’s sitting neatly cross-legged in the corner with a book. “Morning,” he says when he sees Stanford looking at him. “Someone’s looking excited.”

“Oh, you know me,” says Stanford, sitting up and barely containing a bounce. “Sleeping on plastic motel mattresses really jazzes me up.” He doesn’t bother trying to contain the smile that spreads like sunshine across his face.

“Mhm. I’m sure it’s got nothing at all to do with the fact that we’re on the last leg of the journey, right?” Fiddleford teases. “I’ve already had breakfast, by the way. There’s a McDonald’s just across the road.”

Stanley wakes up at light speed when the word ‘breakfast’ is spoken. He rapidly disentangles himself from the bed’s extraneous hold on him and stumbles his way into an upright position. “Wuzzat? You got food _without_ me?” he says, accusatory and only half joking in how offended he sounds.

After mollifying his hungry brother and putting on some decent clothes (what do you _mean_ he needs to get some shirts that aren’t single-coloured button-ups?), they check out and decide to stretch their legs by being dragged behind Stanley to McDonald’s. The decision is pretty much out of anyone’s hands, though, once he catches sight of the golden arches. He’s scarily fast when he wants to be.

One large order of fries and two burgers later, everyone feels generally more awake and ready to face the day. (Stanford might be more so if he’d gotten to eat more than half a burger, but he knows when not to challenge Stanley’s appetite.) Stanley’s licking his fingers with obvious relish while they walk, unhurried, back to the motel.

“I could live off the grease they cook their food in,” Stanley says, and the scary thing is that he probably could. He’s a tenacious beast. Things that should probably kill him often fall very short. “McDonald’s and a road trip… the _last day_ of a road trip. Thank Sagan.”

Even if it’s meant as a joke, Stanford still smiles at the little habit of his that Stanley’s mimicking. With a little luck, he might even be allowed to put up _two_ Carl Sagan posters in their new home.

They get in the car, they drive, the sun marches unstoppably across the sky. Someone tells bad jokes. _Someone_ conducts overly loud acapella covers of BABBA songs. They pass all at once into the Pacific Northwest. Stars begin fading into the darkening blue-black.

As ten-hour days go, it’s blessedly short.

Finally finally _finally_ , after a hasty dinner that Stanley wolfs down in record time, they’re into the last hour. The Diablo hums, seems to lean forward at its axles, eager to finish the journey.

The stars over Oregon look just the same as everywhere else, but Stanford can’t help but think that the sky is that little bit deeper, or the trees offer a little more mystery, or that the air tastes a little more like the supernatural. He sighs, wistfully, and says to himself, _Here’s the beginning of it_.

The beginning of _something_ , in any case, he muses as eyes light up between the trees.

When they pass the sign welcoming them boldly to Gravity Falls, something _happens_.

It’s nothing dramatic, but a shiver runs sparking through all of them and makes their hair stand slightly on end; the stars in the sky shine brighter for a moment, almost marking some indescribable pattern— and then it’s over, and they jolt back to earth with the feeling of waking up from a falling dream.

Stanley speaks first. “Did… what was that? Did I hit a magic pothole or something?” he says, absently patting his mullet down at the back. He looks disconcerted. “That better not have damaged the car. If it did, recompense is coming out of _your_ pocket, Sixer.”

“Um,” says Stanford. He doesn’t know what it was. “I don’t know _what_ that was.” For a moment he blinks, and then a wondrous grin spreads across his face. “But damned if I’m not going to find out.”

.

The town is quiet under the blanket of night, velvet tones quieting the sounds of people in favour of the woods surrounding them; their car is the only vehicle on the road, save for a dawdling police car that rests on one corner. (Stanley shrinks down a little in his seat and turns up the collar of his shirt, even though he hasn’t committed any recent crimes, and none at all since he’s had a mullet.)

There seems to be just one small hotel in Gravity Falls, on the main road of town next to all the other major shops, and that’s where they wearily, finally park. In the morning, they’ll have to talk to someone about buying, or renting, somewhere more permanent, but for now they’re exhausted enough to be happy with _The Beaverbuck Inn_. A stuffed beaver regards them solemnly from above the service counter.

A woman— she looks and sounds rather like a Sally, Stanford decides— gives them a cheery smile as they walk in. “You fine men looking for a room tonight?” she says, with a hint of a twang.

It feels a bit anticlimactic. Stanford thinks that maybe they should have had more fanfare when arriving in the town he’s going to write his most famous and well-published scientific papers from. After all, he’s going to put Gravity Falls well and truly on the map with his groundbreaking discoveries— surely there should be something happening to recognise his appearance. He almost says this to Fiddleford, but decides it sounds a bit too self-centred; instead, he plasters a bracing smile to his face and resolves to _force_ the enthusiasm.

It’s with light hearts and heavy heads that they _finally_ settle down in the rustic room. “So,” says Stanford. The other two nod as if he’s said something profound.

“Yeah,” is Stanley’s contribution.

“Mhm,” nods Fiddleford. He’s already half-asleep.

They’re too tired to make an event of it, but Stanford at least stands up and proclaims, “Welcome to Gravity Falls, gentlemen.” Stanley half-heartedly applauds. Fiddleford falls asleep.

By the time the clock chimes eleven they’re all out cold, letting the Oregon air circulate in their lungs, and feeling the magic seep into their bones bit by bit. And while they sleep and fireflies float like earthbound stars in the forest, something intangibly supernatural fills the space between their skin and bones—

And they dream.

.

Fiddleford’s dream goes like this:

He’s somewhere that looks like the library at Backupsmore, and there’s autumn sunlight streaming in the window, and he doesn’t have anywhere pressing to be. He’s comfortable in his easy chair, with an old book; everything is tinged sepia with some sort of early-onset nostalgia. Then there’s a whirling of colour and movement and he’s somewhere else— outside, maybe, among tall trees, and the autumn sunlight fractures into a cold winter moon, and everything is alarmingly _grey_ , and he catches the faintest impression of eyes watching him following him _seeing into your soul, Fiddleford McGucket_ —

_You aren’t as pure as you’d like to think, are you?_

And he wakes up with a light sheen of sweat on his brow, breathing heavily. When he rolls over and goes back to sleep, he dreams about pie instead.

Stanley’s dream goes like this:

It’s a mishmash of the day’s events, as dreams often are, and he’s trying to fix one of the wheels on the Stanleymobile while his brother monologues about love in the background. “And I’m leaving you both to elope with Bigfoot,” he’s saying. Stanley tunes him out and squints at the tyre, which is apparently an eyeball now. It blinks at him.

Then there’s a voice surrounding him, saying, “Oh, now _this_ is different. You might come in handy later.” And his surroundings all burst into flame, Stanford included, and everything spins rapidly like he’s being swallowed by a whirlpool, and there’s fire and swirling black all around him—

And he wakes up unceremoniously, and blinks at the unfamiliar ceiling. The dream is already slipping away from his fingers, except for the unnatural ring of that voice in his ears. He shuts his eyes and falls asleep a few minutes later, and those words curve through the rest of his slumber, even though the being that spoke them from has already moved on.

Stanford’s dream goes like this:

The trees surrounding him are pines (of course they are, his mind is ridiculously blunt in its imagery), and they tower over him like grim authority figures. Between the trunks flit a dark shape, equally as intimidating, though perhaps more frightening in the uncertainty of it. He takes an uneasy step back, testing the ground, the springiness of the needle covering— but something in him feels warily drawn to _stay_ , rather than flee. It’s terrifying.

And then there’s a voice, saying—

“ _There_ you are, Sixer. I’ve been waiting for you.”

And he wakes up not knowing how he feels.

The night goes on, unmindful of their dreams and the common thread that pins them together, and carries them forward to their first morning in Gravity Falls.

* * *

Somewhere, perpendicular to the plane of reality, geometry comes together to form the lemon-yellow outline of a triangle. Void forms into a top hat and bowtie, and into cartoonish approximations of limbs that grab a simplistic cane from the air. Bill Cipher opens his eye, and without a mouth, he _smiles_.

“This,” he says, to nobody in particular (especially as he can’t yet materialise in the physical world, and thus nobody at all can hear his dulcet tones), “is going to be _very_ interesting.”

And he falls back to the shadows of this dimension, and wait for things to develop.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh, i don't know, i don't know. this meandered a lot. i'd like to apologise for how lacking days 2 & 3 are but i just got incredibly sick of looking at this document.
> 
> fun fact: i did originally start writing a scene where they all sing along to Killer Queen, or Murderous Matriarch i guess, but i got a bit stuck on changing the lyrics, so it didn't make it into the final edit. i'd like to give special thanks to my qp, who sent me scores of parody Queen song names (Stereo Goo Goo; We Will Geologically Affect You; The Next Entity Chomps The Mixed Particles Containing Dirt, Skin Flakes, Etc.) they're wonderful and i wish i had a chance to fit them into this story.
> 
> um, what else. title (and probably the chapter titles as well) taken from Tally Hall's Never Meant To Know, which is a wonderful song from a wonderful band and i highly recommend them. uhh, this will probably end up being around 8-9 chapters, mostly somewhere around this length? and i don't really have an update schedule, or a chapter buffer, so i'm writing as i go. infinite apologies etc.
> 
> i think that's it! please leave comments, they fuel my gay little organs.


	2. today, with the lay of the land

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nobody really ever teaches you how to buy a house, so it's hard to say whether they're doing it by the book or not. (Is there usually this much blackmail involved?)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HELLO!!! first of all: i'm so sorry. i'm so sorry for how long it's taken me to update this. over a month, i know, i KNOW, i'm horrible, but hopefully this is long enough to make up for it.
> 
> second: not much to warn for in this chapter. mentions of homophobia (and i really do mean mentions; i'm... not... a huge fan of writing about homophobia because it's a bit difficult for me to do, so i'm keeping these kids safe), lots of Ford being incredibly anxious, a little language. it's pretty tame. if there's anything i do need to warn for, let me know and i'll fix it immediately.
> 
> i hope you enjoy!

Day one in Gravity Falls starts about the same as anyone might expect.

Sunlight streams through the window like gold, lighting the room in notes of oak and summer. There’s a soft lilting wind that spirals through the rays of sun and carries dust motes, tiny stars in their illumination; it’s all rather homey and sweet, in a distant sort of way. Filtered past eyelids, though, the colours take on something more ominous: maybe like the dull rust of blood, or the sheen from watchful pupils in the shadows, and the gentle breeze that stirs the curtains could be construed as a whisper right into your mind, mesmerising, susurrating, saying–

( _I’ve been waiting for you._ )

Well. Some people might expect that. It depends on who you ask, really.

It takes Stanford a moment to realise he’s actually awake and not in another vague iteration of the forest from his dreams (after the first time when the voice had called him by a nickname so familiar it had made his skin feel like ice, he dreamt of the same place over and over, but like a memory or an echo rather than a true return, and he can’t decide whether he wishes the voice would guide him back there or not), but even when he does, his eyes remain shut. Most of the reason he doesn’t open his eyes is because the sunlight that bleeds through his eyelids tells him that it’s shining directly into his face, and he’d rather his first look at Gravity Falls in the fresh day be something other than a searing glimpse of summer sun, but he’s also content to just drift in the moment for now.

Something about the whole situation feels so unreal–  that they could really be _here_ , at the end of one journey and the beginning of a whole other one; he’s starting out on a sunny day with two people he could never replace, and, ominous dreams and the irritating angle of the sun aside, he’s almost entirely ready to get to work being a _functional adult_ with his own _job_ and _house_ and _life_.

(Almost, though, only almost. He thinks that maybe if he were to dwell on the spikes of panic underneath this floating calm for too long, they might puncture through and leave him to bleed all of the fear out onto the clean white bedsheets.)

So he keeps his eyes shut for peace or desperation and listens to the sounds of his companions (Stanley farts, laughs at it, rolls over, mutters something about being hungry, farts again; Fiddleford admonishes Stanley, laughs a bit himself, brushes his hair, is too much of a morning person altogether) and the meandering background noise that comes through the window: birds and animals, a town waking up, cars on the main street. It’s alarmingly normal for a town that he’s supposed to be researching anomalies in. The thought makes him edge just a little closer to the impending panic, but as if in protest of that a soft smile alights on his features.

“Morning, sunshine,” says Fiddleford, sitting himself at the foot of the bed so that the mattress dips and the sheet pulls from Stanford’s shoulder slightly. He’s doing that thing with his little finger where he bends it rapidly so the joint pops repeatedly in a rhythm, like he always does when he’s had a bad dream, because he’s atrocious at voicing his anxieties aloud and instead does so subconsciously through twitches and cracked knuckles; the sunlight catches his hair, highlighting the tawny brown and peppered-grey streak (which Fiddleford holds stubbornly is hereditary and not a premature sign of stress, and I’m _not_ going grey in my twenties, Stanley, you asshole, and where do you get off judging other people for their hair when you have a _mullet_ ) and probably making him look like a thorough angel, like he does most mornings. (When he doesn’t have a hangover, or when he hasn’t stayed up all night bringing a spur-of-the-moment invention into being, though Stanford would still say he looks angelic even then.)

It’s only _probably_ because Stanford still hasn’t opened his eyes yet and is judging based on sound and past experience. “Mmm,” he hums. “Good morning. How long have you been awake for?” There’s a catch in his voice where he almost asks what the nightmare was about, but then–  a subtle fear that Fiddleford might notice the lingering dream in his eyes in turn grips him, and he doesn’t want to talk about the trees and the shape and the voice of his own dream, so he doesn’t. It’s selfish, maybe, but he doesn’t ask.

“About half an hour,” Fiddleford replies. “I asked downstairs, and there’s a diner where we can get breakfast when Stanley decides to join us in the land of the living.” He stretches, and, seeing that Stanford hasn’t moved an inch since he started talking, takes advantage of the surprisingly roomy bed by laying down with their heads together, back to the window and its too-normal sunlight. Stanford mumbles something unintelligible at the shifting weight and the sudden shade on his face, that faint smile still tugging at his mouth. “Hey,” Fiddleford says quietly, into the space between them like a secret, and that’s what finally pulls his partner’s eyes open; a hand settles on Stanford’s shoulder, curls into the sheet that’s slipping down his arm. If Stanley had been awake, it would have called for some inappropriate wolf-whistling, but as it is, they face each other in the morning quiet peacefully. It’s not quite cuddling (that word never quite fit them; _I think we skipped over lovesick teenagers and went directly to old married couple_ , Fiddleford said once, which Stanford thinks sounds about right), but there’s arms and holding and steady comfort all the same.

Perversely enough, that just sparks another train of anxiety in Stanford’s mind. “Mm,” he starts again, uncreatively. “Listen, Fidds.” There’s a pause where he brings his head back from where it’s nestled in the hollow between neck and shoulder, and looks his partner in the eyes. “Would it be alright if we… kept this quiet for the time being? Um–  us, that is.” Fiddleford’s eyebrows knit together in confusion and maybe fear and Stanford’s hands tighten around the taut muscles of his back. “Not–  I’m not ashamed of you, at _all_ , I promise, it’s just that–  I think we were lucky at Backupsmore,” he says frantically, drawing soothing circles on Fiddleford’s shoulders, “to have that level of acceptance. In a new town, with people we’ve never met and thus have no knowledge of their views and opinions and the volatility thereof, I’d rather find out what people think without the risk of bodily harm.” He pauses, looks fixedly into his partner’s anxious gaze. For all his chipper attitude at sunrise, there’s bags underneath Fiddleford’s eyes. “You–  you understand, don’t you?” The sentence twists his voice pleadingly.

He’s right, of course. Fiddleford can’t deny that. (Stanford is frequently right about a lot of things, even though he comes at the problem a bit sideways, or misses part of the bigger picture; it’s infuriating and endearing in equal measures.) Backupsmore was lax in its observance of social norms, aided by the relative privacy of their date spots (the dorms, the reference section of the library, the DD&MD room, and once, daringly, the quiet dark corner of a small restaurant), and the surprising lack of any sort of bully at the university let them relax easily into the idea of a visible relationship. Perhaps it was the general atmosphere of everyone's awareness of their presence at a school with second-best in its name and foundations, so nobody really saw the point in posturing for nonexistent superiority; maybe it was just chance that nearly every peer had been open-minded at the least and boisterously congratulatory at the most. Either way, it had helped. But here, on the other side of the country and in an entirely new environment where they can only measure the presence of anomalies in the area and not the nature of its people, they need to be careful.

They’ve both had their fair share of bullies in their own time, for various reasons–  genetic mutations, speech patterns, mannerisms deviating from the norm, a higher grade on an inconsequential math test in the first grade–  and neither of them are keen to feel that bitter sting of exclusion and scorn again. On top of that, Fiddleford is endlessly patient and a saint and a potential heavenly being besides, and he sees the worries that Stanford carries inside of him and would do nearly any rational thing to help alleviate them (and a few irrational ones as well). So Fiddleford nods understandingly and presses a kiss to Stanford’s mouth, and then one to his nose, and one more to his mouth for good measure, and says, “It’s fine, darling. I agree.” He touches their foreheads together at the hairline, like tectonic plates striving to hold in an earthquake. “Let me use up some of my daily quota of kisses, though, if I can’t redeem them while we’re in town.”

That pulls a laugh from his partner, low in his throat, and Fiddleford kisses the smile right out of Stanford's lips. Pins the memory of it in his mind, sets it above his mantelpiece with all the other snippets of warmth he’s curated from the inward-turned man he fell face-first in love with, so he can admire it for as long as he likes.

They stay like that while the sun creeps across the sheets and they spill kisses across cheeks and jaws and knuckles until Stanley wakes up and proceeds to laugh at them, jab his brother in the ribs, and complain about the lack of breakfast.

“Come on, lovebirds,” he says as he fights his way into a pair of jeans, “I can sense a stack of pancakes calling my name.”

* * *

“First of all, we need a house,” says Stanford half an hour later at the aptly named Greasy’s Diner. “Preferably with a lab space, and close to the woods. I have a hunch that’s where all the _weirdness_ is.” He scrapes up the dregs of his coffee omelette (a novel experience which he can’t say he’s enamored with, but the combination of caffeine and eggs sets his mind in motion very well) and looks over at Stanley. “So that means we have to find out what the real estate is like here, look around, get some insight as to the best places to buy.” It could be said that such a small town likely wouldn’t have a booming business for emigration, or that they’re probably the first people to move to Gravity Falls in a fair time, but that’s beside the point; Stanford wants to do this properly, wants to make a real adventure out of this mundane business, and by Sagan he’s going to.

(In one of his seldom-spoken of notebooks, he drew his ideal house, complete with floor plan and accompanying doodles of Fiddleford and Stanley standing with him on the back porch, the three of them domestic and perfect in the simply-rendered lines of it all; the drawing is tucked into the pocket of his shirt, a charm for luck as much as anything else. He knows it’s unlikely he’d be able to afford to build it, without cutting far steeper into the grant money than he’d like, so he holds it with his other unlikely dreams and thinks somewhat pragmatically instead.)

Stanley raises an eyebrow and speaks around a mouthful of maple syrup. “Leave it to me, Sixer. I’ll chat up some of the locals, no problem.” And as if his words were a sign, their waitress comes bustling back over to the table. She’s grinning, and the cat earrings she wears sparkle becomingly in the sunlight. Her name tag reads _Susan_ ; if asked, Stanford would probably place her at some age between eighteen and twenty-five, but he’s glad nobody asks him because he knows how disastrously bad a situation can get when one guesses a stranger’s age wrong.

“How’s the food?” Susan asks cheerily. Something in her smile is so genuine and infectious that the three of them can’t help but return it. “And I forgot to ask when I took your order, but are you new in town? I don’t think I recognise your faces.”

Stanley, as is the custom when the topic of food is brought up, speaks for the trio. “The food is _fantastic_ , ma’am. I gotta say, these pancakes? Possibly the best I have _ever_ had. And that, uh, coffee omelette doesn’t look half bad either,” he says dubiously, frowning at the greasy yellow-brown mixture left on Stanford’s plate. “What did you have, Fidds?” He glances over at a tired-looking Fiddleford, who hasn’t contributed very much past nods and smiles to the conversation all morning. After a moment, the question seems to sink in, and Fiddleford starts.

“Oh! Um, bacon and eggs. They were lovely, thank you,” he says, rubbing at his eyes. “Sorry. Didn’t sleep well last night.” His face is drawn and anxious, but there’s usually anxiety in most of his body, so it’s not _too_ much cause for alarm. Still, Stanley tucks it away into the back of his mind–   _Make sure Fiddlenerd gets a good night’s sleep_ , he thinks, adds it to the list of duties he’s assigned himself in their odd family unit–  and gives his friend a small smile before returning to an oblivious Susan.

“As a matter of fact, we _are_ new here,” Stanley says, pushing his plate away and turning his body to face the waitress. “Here to study weird things, find the meaning of life, do science, et cetera. You’d be better off asking my brother about the specifics.” Stanford looks a bit indignant at the lazy abridging of his plans, but stays quiet. “I’m Stanley, by the way, but you can call me Stan. This,” he says with an index finger to his brother, “is Stan _ford_ , my twin brother–  don’t call him Stan, it gives us both the heebie-jeebies; Ford is much better.” Stanford nods politely and bites his lip and deliberately moves his fidgeting hands underneath the table; Susan doesn’t seem to notice anything and continues smiling widely at him, repeating “Stanford, _not_ Stan, Ford,” in an undertone. “The loveable beanpole next to him is Fiddleford– ”

“Fiddleford Hadron McGucket,” interrupts a somewhat more awake-sounding Fiddleford, with that shy curl of a grin that comes whenever he says his full name out loud to someone new. It’s thrilling, and he _loves_ his name, loves the rhythm and asymmetry of it, because of how many times Stanley and Stanford have said it over the years. Hearing it out of the mouths of friends–  spoken with love and caring and fondness rather than derision, rather than a sneer from a bully in the schoolyard–  makes him appreciate his mother’s decision to propel him into the path of science before he was old enough to talk, and to couple the hard physics in the syllables of _Hadron_ with the lilt of _Fiddleford_ ; it’s dissonant and just a tad eccentric, so it fits him perfectly. Yes, he used to hate it, and sometimes when he catches a stifled laugh after he introduces himself he does again for a split second, but it’s his, and it sounds sweeter than any music when it’s said in Stanford’s smooth bass (and even in Stanley’s gruff tones, he admits, despite the constant butchering of it into _Fiddlenerd_ ). “It’s a lovely town you’ve got here, Susan,” he continues, and then sees the wounded look on Stanley’s face at being cut off. “Oh, well I surely apologise, Stanley. Do go on. Continue to enlighten us all with your endless font of knowledge.” He rolls his eyes. Some of the earlier anxiety is gone, covered by dry sarcasm, but it still hangs in the tense rectangle of his shoulders, missed sleep in the empty spaces between his bones–

( _You aren’t as pure as you’d like to think, are you?_ )

He shakes off the stubborn wisp of dream and looks expectantly back at Stanley. ( _Don’t dwell on voices in the night_ , he tells himself, _don’t let it get to you._ )

“That’s what I thought,” says Stanley, meeting his gaze and letting the joke carry on, even if there’s concern in his stare. It takes him a moment to look away and back to Susan. “ _Anyway_ , before I was rudely interrupted I was going to say–  we’re looking for somewhere to live, permanent residence-wise. Would you know how to go about arranging that?”

“Oh, sure! The Northwests handle most things that involve a lot of money in this town,” Susan replies. “Their real estate building thingum is just off the main street. Can’t miss it. Gravity Falls is a bit too out in the sticks for most folks, though, y’see, so it’s not often we get newcomers looking to stay. _Especially_ science-types!” She shuffles awkwardly into the booth beside Stanley and sits down, still speaking animatedly. “I’ve always thought our little town was special. Some people think the woods are cursed, or that there’s demons afoot, but hey!” Her hand waves flippantly. “I’ve never got hurt by the funny things that happen round here.”

“The _funny things_?” says Stanford enthusiastically, marking the first words he’s said to a Gravity Falls resident that weren’t to do with ordering breakfast. “What kind of funny things? Anomalous flora and fauna, statistical improbabilities, unique natural phenomena?” Susan looks intimidated. “ _Cryptids_?” His entire upper body is creeping steadily across the table as he talks; somewhere among the long words his hands crept out and are clasped excitedly in front of his grinning face. “I _knew_ this was the place! Ah, the papers I’ll be able to write, the groundbreaking research! We _have_ to live near the woods, it’s confirmed. What–  what kind of things have you observed, Susan?”

“Well,” says Susan, leaning back, “I saw a bunch of tiny men in my backyard once. Does that help?”

Stanford’s grin falters slightly; his brother takes the opportunity to shove him back across the table and re-enter the conversation. “Keep it in your pants, Sixer,” he says. “So. We’re looking for the Northwests?” Susan nods while casting a wary look at Stanford.

“Yep! I don’t think there’s anything much for sale near the woods at the moment, though,” she replies. “Most people live further in. The Corduroys are out there, of course, but that’s because of the lumber business; the majority of folk keep to the town, away from the rumours and such. You know, I once heard that Abigail Ramirez and her little girl–  Abby is _lovely_ , and she’s so good with kids, and she’s only a few years older than me! Fancy that! Anyway, she and her girl went out for a picnic on the lake, just into the treeline, and came back talking about shapes in the lake and roaring noises, and I’m pretty sure that little men don’t _roar_ , so whatever things are in the woods are probably different in the lake. But maybe the little men were just going scuba diving! Do you think they make snorkels for tiny mouths?” She breaks off for a moment. “What was I saying? Oh, did I start rambling again? Gosh, sorry,” she says, looking embarrassed. “Sentences just get away from me sometimes. Um. Oh! Anyway, my point was that it might be a bit hard to find something for sale out of town. The Northwests own all the land, of course, so you’ll still have to buy from them, it just won’t be a house. Might have to build it yourself. Have you ever built a house? I made a birdhouse once, but I don’t suppose it’s the same thing, really.”

It takes Stanley a moment to process the monologue. “Uh, well, thanks for the help anyway, Susan. You’ve been really great! We’ll talk to these Northwests, see if they can’t hook us up with some land.” He smiles at Susan as she extricates herself from the booth and collects their plates. “And thanks for the food, too. Those pancakes really were exquisite.” Stanford and Fiddleford nod their agreement as well.

When she’s bustled back off to the kitchen with their plates balanced precariously in her arms, Stanley faces the other two in the booth. “Well! That’s your day planned out, Ford. Have fun talking to these Northwest folks.”

“What?” replies his brother, bemused. “Where are you off to?”

Stanley raises an eyebrow. “I don’t think I’m really the best person to be negotiating with real estate brokers,” he says matter-of-factly. “Criminal record, and all that. Besides, this town looks pretty interesting, and I’ve been cooped up in a car for the better part of three days, and my mischief muscles are probably atrophied by now. I need to cause some trouble or I might _die_.” He might, at that. It’s not outside the realm of possibility for Stanley. “Really, though, I’ll just do some exploring, meet the locals, find out some hot gossip, see the sights.”

Despite his efforts to the contrary, Stanford’s face falls. “Oh! Um, okay.” He attempts a smile. “Have fun, don’t break any laws. If you see anything paranormal then make sure to record it somehow.” From the pocket of his shirt he pulls a small notebook and pen, thrusting them at Stanley, who takes the enthusiastically proffered items hesitantly. “I don’t know how long it’ll take to, uh, buy a house, so we might just meet you back at the hotel. How long _does_ it take to buy a house? Should I have found that out beforehand?” A tiny thrill of fear threads into his voice, sending it mildly shriller than normal.

“Eh, you’ll be fine,” says Stanley with a flippant wave of his hand. “You’re smart. You’ll probably, I don’t know, set a record for fastest real estate deal or something.” He claps an encouraging hand on Stanford’s back, and walks jauntily (and backwards) out of the diner with both thumbs held up.

Fiddleford sighs. Stanley walks into a waiter and sends coffee and eggs all over a couple in the corner. “Well, we’d better get on over to the Northwests’ office.” He looks over at Stanford, who is looking forlornly at his brother’s retreating figure. “No time like the present to buy a house and start racking up debt, eh?”

That seems to make something twist tighter in Stanford’s already compromised insides. He winces minutely. “Why–  why rush?” he says, pulling a smile over his anxiety. “It’s not even ten in the morning yet. How about we, uh. Check out the library? This town _must_ have a public library.” As diversion tactics go, it’s not terribly subtle, and Fiddleford raises a suspicious eyebrow at the hasty words. But he doesn’t protest, at least.

“...Alright, Stanford. We can go to the library,” he says after a moment of studying his partner’s face. He can see the hair-trigger nerves under the veneer of self-assuredness that Stanford keeps pristine over his entire being, he’s seen him work himself to the edge of a cliff before, he _knows_ some of the fears trapped under the cage of his ribs. There’s been times he’s held Stanford’s wrists to keep him from tumbling over a precipice, and times he’s been too late and watched the slow-motion coming apart of a person, and had to help him pick up the pieces after a breakdown.

So he can appreciate it when Stanford tries to slow his overclocked fears with distractions. (And if he doesn’t feel quite brave enough to help yet, then maybe it’s because of the faint echo of a voice, cutting his intestines and fears bare and leaving him splayed out like a biology project, saying _you aren’t as pure as you’d like to think_. If he’s not a good person–  if he can’t even keep his own fears from cracking open his skull and tainting the air around him–  on what grounds does he deserve to bestow goodness upon others?)

* * *

The library, at least, feels familiar. There’s books and quiet dusty sunlight and plush seats that could have been lifted straight from the Backupsmore library, which had become his second home for four years; there’s a few people cloistered here and there between the shelves, but for the most part it’s blessedly empty, and Stanford takes a deep breath of paper aromas and tries to tell himself to _stop panicking_.

He immediately gravitates to the reference section, the Dewey decimals looking more and more like a familiar friend with each number that his eyes run over. Here–  in the calm unhurriedness and solitude of books, with words he can make sense of, apart from the frazzled irrationality his mind becomes sometimes–  he feels like he can _relax_ , a little bit. It doesn’t exactly feel like home: its angles and alleyways are different from the floor plan of Backupsmore that he’s used to, and the people sometimes look twice at the newcomer’s face; but for all its differences, he holds firm in the belief that libraries, if nothing else, are a universal constant.

They while away an hour–  two–  he finds books to bury his head in while Fiddleford drums his fingers in a beat on the growing stack of finished volumes beside him. He’s comfortable. He doesn’t have to talk, except when he murmurs something to himself after an interesting theory or conclusion in the text. Books are easy. Books he can understand, categorise, file away neatly.

(The wide, wide world, full of responsibilities and independence and decisions that will affect his life rather than the outcome of an experiment, well. That’s a lot harder to deal with.)

At some point, though, a distraction inevitably becomes an avoidance.

“It’s nearly noon, Stanford,” says Fiddleford with just a hint of impatience. “Don’t you think we should go and see about the house?”

Stanford blinks, and puts down the book he’s holding with white knuckles, and can’t find anything to say to the otherwise that doesn’t sound pathetic. “Yeah,” he concedes, with a sigh and a near-imperceptible slump of his broad shoulders. “Yeah. I’ve wasted enough time, right? Time to get on with… life, and all that.” He rises to leave and freezes momentarily at the hand that falls over his own splayed on the table. Fiddleford looks at him, eyes serious, but doesn’t say anything. “It’ll be fine, Fidds,” he says in response to an unasked question. “I’ll be fine.” He repeats that to himself silently all the way from the library to their terrible destination, lips barely moving like a breath of a prayer.

(Because who is he _really_ convincing here?)

The words ‘Northwest Real Estate’ feel like lead in the pit of his stomach. There’s a door, and then a receptionist, and then a space in Mr Northwest’s schedule ten minutes from now, and then a waiting room, and then they wait.

It occurs to Stanford that he should do something about the spectacular job he’s doing at not being attached to his body, but then ten minutes are up and they’re being called into an office and meeting Charles Northwest, who oozes professionalism neatly from every deliberate crease in his starched suit.

Words are exchanged. He doesn’t really take them in at the time, but in a hazy reflection afterwards he might pick out notable phrases like _thirty thousand_. Or maybe that’s just the last solid thing he can remember being said before something in his mind bends a little, snaps under some invisible pressure, and he’s suddenly nodding while Fiddleford says “We might just step out and talk about it, is that okay?” And then the man–  Charles is such a ridiculously posh-sounding name–  is smiling blandly across the desk, saying something pointless like “Oh, take all the time you need,” or “Of course, of course,” and he and Fiddleford are walking out of the tiny office into the tiny hallway into the tiny waiting room, getting smaller every second, pressing in on his temples and making spots dance in front of his eyes.

And he thinks, _I can’t do this._

He’s still spinning dizzily away from reality when he realises that Fiddleford has said something and is waiting expectantly for an answer. “Sorry, what was that?” he asks, hoping that his voice isn’t as faint as he feels.

His partner gives him a long, steady look. “I asked what you thought of the price.” Then, as if it’s the only important question in the world, “Stanford, are you okay? Is something wrong?” They’re sitting on chairs without armrests, legs close enough that they could be touching, and Stanford feels like his skin is on fire. He shifts minutely so that he’s facing just slightly away from Fiddleford.

“No. No. I mean, I’m fine.” The sentence comes out stilted. He clenches his fists over and over, looking for something to ground his swimming head. “I’m fine. It’s fine.”

Fiddleford glances over his shoulder at the empty waiting room, and reaches over to gently wrap his fingers around Stanford’s trembling wrists. “I’m not going to accuse you of lying, but you don’t seem okay to me,” he says. His grip is soft, skin flush on Stanford’s stutter-pulse, keeping the anxious shaking to a manageable degree. “Tell me what’s wrong, darling.”

“It’s just,” says Stanford, and takes a great swooping breath into his lungs. “It’s so much money. I don’t–  I don’t know what I expected, or what I should have expected, but somehow I didn’t really–  didn’t really grasp the entire concept of _buying a house_.” And now that he’s broken the surface tension of all the words trapped in his throat, they come flooding out. “I mean–  god, I should have _researched_ this a little bit, but as always I’m just so fixated on the scientific, the anomalies, the opportunities, that everything else falls by the wayside, and I forgot that this–  moving away, to a new town, all that–  it means that I have to function as an adult, and have all of these responsibilities, and I don’t think I ever properly learned how to do that! It’s–  it’s so _expensive_! Either we dip further into the grant money than we planned, or we fumble our way through a mortgage, and I’m fairly sure I don’t know how _that_ works either.” The words catch behind his teeth and he coughs out a shallow laugh, aware that he’s not quite breathing properly. “A PhD four years ahead of schedule and I can’t even handle _real estate negotiations_ ,” he says. “I don’t know how to do any of this.”

Fiddleford’s eyes go soft and tender, and one hand moves up to brush Stanford’s fringe away from his face. “Hey, now. It’ll be okay. Y’know, I’m sure there’s other options for the house, and we’ll be able to talk that all through. But most importantly,” he says, fingers carding through Stanford’s hair, “you don’t have to do any of this by yourself, love. You’ve got me, and we’ve got Stanley too, even if he might not be the best source of help for things with lots of signatures and legal nonsense.” He smiles, and waits for his partner’s mouth to lose its downwards turn; it takes a moment, but Stanford does return the smile tiredly.

He _has_ people, Stanford reminds himself. He _has_ people behind him and beside him, and they aren’t going to abandon him or betray him any time soon, and even though that ice-edged fear very rarely listens to rationality, repeating a mantra of _you aren’t alone, you can trust them, you have a family here_ keeps it just shy of freezing his entire heart over in cracked frost. “I,” he says, and closes his eyes and feels foolish for the fear still present in his shallow lungs. They’re still alone, so he lets himself lean a little against Fiddleford’s comforting narrow chest. “Yeah. Thank you. But the–  the money, still. How will we– ”

“I don’t know, dear,” says Fiddleford so soothingly it sounds like reassurance and an answer all on its own. Stanford lets his head drift up towards his partner’s, their gazes meeting, blood still rushing to Stanford’s cheeks no matter how many times he’s beheld the love mirrored in Fiddleford’s eyes. Very quietly, Fiddleford keeps talking; it’s barely a breath, given how close their faces are. “But I’m sure we’ll find a way to– ”

And of course fate takes that very moment to send someone bursting explosively into the room. Stanford very nearly breaks Fiddleford’s jaw with the speed he jerks his head first forward and then away; there’s a thousand stuttered excuses on his tongue to placate a perturbed Northwest that just walked in on their intimate scene. _It’s not what it looks like, I swear. I was just helping him put in his contacts. His contacts that he wears with glasses, yes._

He’s just turning, ready to spill any number of watertight explanations, and then he sees that it’s actually _Stanley_ who’s erupted into the room.

“What’s the word, guys?” he says. There’s a fair amount of dirt on his clothes, and, at first glance, what seems to be a tranquiliser dart embedded in the side of one of his sneakers. On second glance, it _is_ a tranquiliser dart. For some reason, Stanford can’t find the wherewithal to be surprised.

Fiddleford straightens his collar, frowns slightly at Stanley’s dishevelled state, and takes on the responsibility for answering. He doesn’t think Stanford is quite capable of explaining the situation without risking a full-blown fulmination of panic. He’s right. “Uh, the word is thirty thousand for a house, Stanley,” he says. “The Northwests are… a bit uppity about keeping their money close to hand, I think. We _can_ technically afford it, but it’s a pretty steep cut into our finances.” With a glance at an exhausted-looking Stanford, slumped in his seat, he adds, “It’s been a bit stressful, truth be told.”

For whatever reason unbeknownst to mortal minds, that makes an unrestrained grin spread across Stanley’s features. “Oh, this is _perfect_! I was just gonna use this for entertainment, but hell, if I can get a little justice done on the side, then that’s even better!” he says gleefully, clutching at something that crinkles in the pocket of his jeans. “No need to stress, Sixer, I’m here to save the day.”

So with a wink and a frankly terrifying laugh, Stanley whisks away into the office they’d been sitting in just minutes before, and Fiddleford quietly hopes they don’t get evicted before they even own a house.

(When a shriek shocks through the thin walls, followed by low, sinister laughter and what might be sobs, he lowers his sights to not being reported to the police.)

* * *

Stanford’s pacing holes in the floor and Fiddleford is watching him from one of the uncomfortable seats when Stanley comes out of the room looking triumphant, and they all know from experience that that is never a good sign.

“We have a house!” he says. There’s paperwork crumpled carelessly in the hand that isn’t clenched aloft in victory. “Well. Not a house as such, but we have a _property_ , and there’s a builder in town who can get it done in no time.” He smooths out the sheaf of paper, holds it smugly in front of him like an aced test.

Stanford and Fiddleford squint at it. It _looks_ official enough.

It takes them both a moment to get over the shock of Stanley having apparently successfully negotiated a real estate deal. “I… congratulations?” says Stanford, sounding very removed from the situation. “How… how much did you haggle it down to?” he asks hesitantly, shifting uncomfortably in his seat, almost reaching out to take the paper from his brother but then pulling back at the last second, as if touching it would bring back the wave of panic he just barely crested whole. That, or it might incur some contract-touching fee, which, considering the entire encounter with the Northwests, doesn’t seem so far-fetched.

At that, Stanley grins rakishly. “Guess,” he says, which means that he’s so proud of himself he wants someone else to talk about his success out loud first; it also means that it’s either incredibly low or a number with sixty-nine or four hundred and twenty in it, because Stanley’s humour never really progressed past that of a ninth grader.

“Stan, do we _really_ have to do this whole song and dance?” Stanford groans. “I’ve had a really… exhausting day.” He rubs his temples and then breathes a laugh. “Just tell me how much money is about to disappear from my life, please.”

The silence stretches out, clearly intended by Stanley to be dramatic; it comes off as painful instead, and Fiddleford quietly worries at a fingernail and hopes for the best. The waiting room feels very tense. Stanford’s face is slowly being consumed by his hands as the emptiness continues.

“...Nothing! Nada! Zero dollars and zero cents, O brother o’ mine,” Stanley finally says, right before it looks like he or Stanford are going to explode. “They’re even covering labour and material costs. Am I a good businessman or what?”

The memories of tenth-grade drama classes spin in Fiddleford’s head. If this were a scene in the tragicomedy of his life, there would be a lot of beats, he thinks.

(Beat.)

(Beat.)

(This is a very drawn-out play.)

Stanford doesn’t _explode_. His knees bend inwards slightly and he lets out all the air in his lungs like a death rattle and his eyes bulge a little, but at least he doesn’t explode. “Um,” he tries. “Uh.” Brings a shaking hand to his face. “Let’s say I believe you, Stan. How–   _how_ exactly did you manage to get a house for free?” he says, desperately.

That seems to be another log on the fire of Stanley’s enthusiasm. “Well,” he says, and then bites his lip with glee. “I may or may not have discovered a government cover-up that, if it were to become common knowledge, would lead to the public disgrace of the Northwest family?”

“What?” says Fiddleford, finally finding his voice. “What?”

Stanley grins and pulls a few neatly creased papers from his pocket, tucking the deed and other assorted official forms under his arm. “Turns out that Nathaniel Northwest, supposed founder of this great town, was actually a fraud. Ol’ Natty boy is the only reason this family has any real standing–  old money, or whatever, and the people in this town seem to be pretty easily swayed by anyone claiming authority–  so, you know, I photocopied these important government documents,” he says, waving the papers for emphasis, “and threatened to send them off to the newspaper. Charles folded pretty soon after that.” He offers the document to Stanford, who just looks blankly at it, and then to Fiddleford, who actually reads it. It details the reality of Nathaniel Northwest’s true identity, along with some other interesting facts which Fiddleford finds hard to process for a moment. In the grand scheme of things, though, the existence of an enormous transdimensional time-traveling baby isn’t the weirdest concept he’s ever heard of. He looks from the paper to Stanley to the paper to Stanley’s flushed, prideful face to the paper again.

_Then_ comes the long overdue explosion from Stanford.

“Are you _serious_ , Stanley? You’re alone for a day–  not even a day! How long has it been, like, three hours? And you uncover some sort of _conspiracy_?” Stanford cries hysterically. He bends over and has to lean a hand on the wall to steady himself, wheezing out a frantic laugh. “God, Stan, I can’t believe you. Only you. _Only_ you would pull this off.”

“Are… are you _angry_?” questions Stanley, uncertain. “I honestly can’t tell here. I mean, I can go rebury these documents if it’d make you feel better, Sixer, but I’ve already forged your signature on the deed, so. Y’know. If you didn’t want me to solve your financial problems then you should have said something _before_ I swooped in and saved the day.” For all his humour, he actually sounds genuinely worried that he’s somehow ruined things ( _again_ , says something in the back of his mind), and he puts a tentative hand on his brother’s shoulder.

That elicits another round of feverish laughter. “I’m not _angry_ , you knucklehead,” Stanford says when he finally straightens up. “I’m–  well, I sort of am, but only because you managed to make a dramatic discovery before I did, but–  I’m grateful, Stanley, and I’m proud of you.” He looks raw and sheepish and still disbelieving, but yes, proud; it’s like he’s amazed at the capacity for ingenuity that humans other than himself can hold, which might be a tad insulting, but Stanley knows that underneath his brother’s layer of translucent conceitedness is depths of fear and anxiety and desperate expectations he sets for himself, so he suns himself in the unfamiliar sensation of pride (coming from _someone other than himself_ for once!) and smiles.

“Good,” says Stanley, “because I dodged tranquiliser darts to get that, so you’d _better_ be grateful.” The moment of tension and fear over, he falls back to self-assured teasing easily; the hand on his twin’s shoulder becomes a fully-fledged sideways hug, and he even dares to pull Fiddleford from his seat and into the embrace. It’s comfortable, and the potent distance simmering between Fiddleford and Stanford melts away for a moment.

When they break apart, and Stanford can breathe properly, they bask in the glow of success for a moment–  they bought a house! Well, some might say _blackmailed_ , but that’s neither here nor there. Stanley shuffles through the legal documents (the ones he, ahem, legally obtained the rights to, not the ones he pilfered from a dusty room full of conspiracies) and slides his finger down the page until he finds an address.

“Gopher Road,” he says without preamble. Fiddleford gives him a strange look until context clues him in to what Stanley is talking about. “The house,” he clarifies. “The property, I guess. It’s on Gopher Road. Yeesh, this really _is_ a country town. Anyway, I was thinking we could take the Diablo over, check it out a bit.” He nudges his brother with an elbow. “You can come and make sure it’s all up to scratch, eh? And then we find the builder, talk to her about the nitty-gritty, and wham-bam–  we have a house!” Maybe he’s simplifying the process a bit, but it does make Stanford smile.

Then Stanford thinks about how he couldn’t even get this right without panicking and he had to be bailed out by Stanley and a convenient conspiracy, and he wants to prove, somehow, to the world or himself or his nonexistent audience that he can do something properly, and it’s _not_ resentment that twists in his gut, just an intense craving to show _someone_ that he can do _something_ properly. There’s a misplaced need to earn his own self-worth burning in his sternum suddenly, or maybe it’s been there for years already. He loses half the smile in the clench of a jaw.

“I–  I might go and talk to the builder first, if that’s okay,” he says, doing his utmost not to betray the internal crisis boiling under his chest. “Since you’ve sorted this part out and all, it only seems fair that I participate in the raising of this household as well.” _Right_ , he thinks. _Light enough on the angst that he won’t be worried, but with rationality backing it up._

“You sure?” Stanley says, not unkindly. “We can go together, if you like. This Corduroy lady, she sounds pretty full-on.” Despite being the younger sibling by fifteen whole minutes, Stanley has a carefully cultivated tone of voice he uses when putting on his protective brother airs. It’s comforting; the nostalgia of Glass Shard Beach in his head, when Stanley would step in front of him and take the blame time and time again, is as fresh as ever when he thinks about the fact that he is once again part of a duo (though maybe not as dynamic as Stanley might like to think).

“No, Stan, it’s fine. Really,” Stanford says, “I want to do _something_ of value in this whole endeavour. Can’t have you taking all the glory, can we?”

Fiddleford puts a hand on his shoulder. “You don’t have to–  I don’t know, _prove yourself_ to us, darling,” he says, striking with uncanny precision at the heart of the matter, like he does so often. Stanford’s face softens a little, and the smile becomes substantially more genuine. “But if you really want to, then we’ll see you over at the property?”

It’s wonderful, he thinks, to have people who can be concerned about you but who also know when to let you try your own way through the fear. Stanley can be overbearing at times, and Fiddleford reticent to talk about his own deep-seated terrors, but they know at some base level how to make him feel cared for without smothering. Maybe it was the eighteen months of building separation between him and his brother that set their relationship back on less destructive tracks, or maybe it’s the mellowing presence of Fiddleford to balance them into a more cohesive whole, but either way it keeps them afloat, and it keeps _him_ afloat, so he’s immeasurably thankful for it.

And so Stanley and Fiddleford drop him off at Greasy’s diner with a smile and a wave, and he prepares himself for take two of this whole adulting business.

* * *

Apparently Greasy’s is the only eatery in Gravity Falls, because that’s where half the town is eating lunch. Stanley, relaying Charles Northwest’s pale-faced instructions, had said that Corduroy was always here at lunch, and that Charles would call the diner immediately to let her know that Stanford was on his way. He’d also received a brief physical description of the woman he’s seeking, and it only takes half a second of Stanford scanning the room–  his gaze skates over Susan chatting to a young woman with a child of about five hanging from her arm, a group of teenagers brooding in a corner and affecting a disinterested attitude, and a family engaged in a speed-eating contest–  to find the proverbial elephant in the room. With that hair, though, she’s more like a ginger wooly mammoth.

Stanford squares his shoulders and edges through the midday crowd until he’s standing next to the woman who is either the builder he’s looking for or a _body_ builder. She has at least six cups of coffee in front of her, not counting the discarded empties.

“You’re… Josie Corduroy?” Stanford asks the hunched mass of muscle. It turns to reveal a round face that could be friendly if it was occupied by anything other than a monumental scowl, topped with eyebrows and frizzy red hair barely contained beneath a knit cap. Everything about the woman seems solid, from the muscles in her upper arms (and forearms, and torso, and legs, and neck, and internal organs, probably) to the way she immediately fixes Stanford with a daunting stare and juts her chin forward like a challenge.

“That I am, kid.” Her voice is middling-deep and rough, the monosyllabic force of it making Stanford’s legs wobble dangerously. Not in the infatuated way, mind, more in the fight-or-flight response to a creature higher than him on the food chain.

A feeble protest about how he’s actually twenty-two, twenty-three in a little over a month, dies on his lips. Instead he daringly seats himself opposite Josie and jerkily sticks a hand out over the table in greeting. “Stanford Pines. I’ve, uh. Bought a property from the Northwests,” he says, which is mostly true, and he doesn’t want to go through the trouble of explaining all the intricacies of bribery and blackmail. “I was told to inquire about your services for construction?”

She nods and closes her eyes, tilting her head back down to the small armada of coffee cups in front of her. The offered hand goes unshaken and awkwardly retreats. “Yeah. Charles told me I might be expectin’ a meeting with a kid from New Jersey,” she grunts, then opens her eyes and fixes Stanford with an intimidating look. “Well? Out with the details, Pines. Show me the plans for this house of yours.”

“Um,” says Stanford. “It’s out on the edge of the woods. The end of Gopher Road.” His mind goes blank, and without really registering the action he’s suddenly pulling the paper with his sentiment-soaked dream house plan sketched on it from his pocket and handing it over the table. He nearly drops it in one of the coffees. Maybe that would have been a better outcome, though, because he only remembers the embarrassing, uh, _artistic embellishments_ he added (if that’s what he’s going to call his disgustingly homey doodle of the Mystery Trio as a family, lovehearts and all) when Josie unfolds the paper and squints at it. She even pulls some incongruous reading glasses from her shirt, as if the entire atmosphere wasn’t off-kilter enough.

After a long moment (if that raised eyebrow was in response to his drawing he might _actually die_ ), punctuated by a sparse nod or swig of coffee, Josie folds the paper and her arms. “I’ll get it done in a week,” she says.

Stanford thinks he might have misheard. Either that, or he is _way_ less informed about the process of building a house than he thought.

He clears his throat hesitantly. “A… a week? Are you serious?” he says, by which he means _are you a literal machine because I’m fairly sure that’s physically impossible, or improbable at the very least_. He doesn’t want to offend, though, so he keeps that addendum private.

Josie _growls_. Legitimately, a rumbling deep in her sternum, as if holding thunder in her lungs. She slams a fist down on the table like a judge’s gavel. “Six days!” she roars, so loudly the entire diner vibrates a bit. Nobody else seems to pay any mind to the increasing volume. “That’s the fastest we can get it done, Jersey boy. Unless you’re doubtin’ my family’s work ethic!”

Stanford almost says _Six days?_ incredulously but thinks better of it. She might take it as an even graver insult, and he’d rather not cause any undue property damage. “Uh,” is what he says instead. “Six days will be fine, Miss Corduroy. We can go over to the property now to finalise plans, if you like?” The sentence goes involuntarily upwards at the end, like it’s trying to escape from the situation entirely.

Thankfully, that seems to have been the polite response. Josie nods and downs the rest of her scaldingly hot coffees, almost in a single motion. A quick count numbers the empty mugs at nine. “Edge of the woods, you said?” she barks. (Like a German Shepherd, Stanford thinks, like a Rottweiler. Like the mongrel pit that used to hang around the back of the family pawn shop.) Her eyes narrow further beneath the shock of ginger that constitutes a fringe. “People hear about some strange things in those woods, y’know. Things not of this world. Things that... don’t belong.” He doesn’t miss the way her eyes flick down to his hands on the table, one absently cupping an empty coffee mug, the other twitching nervously; his stomach hurts like poison and he deliberately pulls his elbows back to his ribs, drops his hands below the table. Lets them rest on his lap, hidden by the uncompromising oak. Josie stares unflinchingly at his face for a long, coarse moment, and nods once, firmly.

In the silence, she doesn’t say that he’ll fit right in, but they both hear the words plain as day hanging in the greasy air.

“Um,” he says, to fill the heavy emptiness. “It’s a little ways out. I can drive you, if you…” He trails off, mostly because the image of Josie Corduroy crammed into the Diablo, limbs boxed up and ginger hair spilling out at the seams and all, strikes him as a crash hazard. Also because he remembers that Stanley and Fiddleford took the car to their new property, so it might be a bit of trouble to drive it from the diner if it isn’t _there_ , as such.

“Bah!” she spits. “You ain’t crammin’ me into whatever prissy science car you drive, Pines. We can take my truck.” With that she stands up (though not without a fair bit of table-knocking and well-placed swearing) and makes her unyielding way towards the exit of the diner. Stanford follows meekly in her destructive wake. He sends a silent prayer of thanks to the out-of-sight stars above that he survived the interaction in one piece.

Then he gets into the truck, giving a brief nod to the teenager sat stony-faced in the passenger seat, and the Johnson 6 start their upbeat boy band sound from the tape in the stereo, and he steels himself for another trial altogether.

* * *

They arrive at the site intact–  well, more or less. Stanford’s eardrums took a beating from Josie’s raucous singalong, and when she’d rolled down the window to loudly greet a teenager stepping off the kerb (“You and Daniel still on for dinner tonight, Jackson? He’s been mopin’ all over about not bein’ able to hang out with you lately!”, followed by an affronted “ _Mom_!” from Josie’s otherwise stoic son) the thought that everything that comes out of her mouth must register on the Richter scale had run through his mind.

When the engine of the truck finally cuts out and the last strains of pop music filter out into the air, Stanford heaves a relieved sigh and steps out onto flat-packed earth, Josie following stolidly behind. It’s quite a beautiful spot, really. Trees border the clearing, grass sparse in the centre but edging into shrubs and bushes as empty space moves towards the woods proper. There’s a swirling of dust in the middle distance, kicked up from some recent activity there, though what exactly that might be is–  his observations of his surroundings are abruptly cut short by a frustrated _noise_.

“ _Mom_!” growls Daniel in an undertone, hurrying awkwardly towards them. “You embarrassed me in front of Jackson! Ugh, I bet he _hates_ me now.” His face is as red as the obligatory Corduroy hair, and he’s rapidly flipping between pulling his knitted hat down over his eyes and glaring pointedly at his mother. “If he ditches me at school next week I’m blaming you.”

Stanford raises an eyebrow.

“Ah, he’ll get over it,” Josie scoffs. “If he’s marryin’ into the family then he’d better get used to me. And ain’t it a mother’s job–  no, her _duty_ to embarrass her son?” she continues dramatically, raising one hand to the sky in a semblance of Shakespeare. Daniel covers his face entirely and groans again, then grabs a toolbox with a roll of his eyes and flounces off to the other side of the soon-to-be construction site. There’s nothing to use the tools _on_ , though, so it’s fairly transparent as an evasive maneuver.

“Um,” says Stanford. “Marrying into the family?” he repeats cautiously. Marriage laws hadn’t changed in the past week, had they? _Had_ they? Had he at some point crossed into an alternate dimension full of tolerance tenfold?

Josie nods confidently, gazing after her son with that inimitable mix of fondness and amusement. “Yeah. He’s got integrity, his Jackson, and they’ve been together a good while now; if they’re still goin’ strong when Dan turns eighteen then I fully intend my son to make an honest man of him.”

“Oh,” says Stanford, half-sigh and half-word, “I didn’t realise that was–  uh, _legal_ , that is.” Something in him–  his heart, or his diaphragm–  is working overtime; he feels lightheaded.

Josie squints down at him and cocks her head. “You really _are_ new around here, Jersey boy,” she says, after a long moment. “If you’re one of those types who’s gonna soil their fineries every time I kiss my wife, then you’re not gonna last long in Gravity Falls.” She snorts derisively; Stanford amends his earlier appraisal of her as a dog to some noble subset of beast of burden, all bound muscle and dense flesh. “It’s been legal in this town as long as anyone can remember. Some of the more high-and-mighty families scoff at it, though,” she says, and coughs up something that might be _Northwests_ , “but they ain’t been able to get it repealed. We protect our own, here.”

And one of the innumerable tightly coiled anxieties in Stanford’s clockwork insides springs free and unwinds into the forest air.

“I–  I can absolutely assure you I am _not_ one of those types, Miss Corduroy,” he says hastily, and a crooked grin fights at his lips to take over his face, because everything he’s been scared about today seems to be going alright, all things considered. “I– ”

He’s cut off, beautifully, by the arrival of Fiddleford and Stanley, the former with an exasperated smile on his face and the latter with grazed knees and dirt all over.

“Hi!” says Stanley. “I fell in a hole!”

“He fell in a hole,” agrees Fiddleford, nodding sagely.

“Why did you do that, Stan?” asks Stanford, crossing his arms in mock disappointment. “I can’t seem to leave you alone today. First you’re digging up government conspiracies, now you’re falling into mysterious holes. What’s next, the apocalypse?”

“Eh, yeah. Probably. Though, out of the two of us, my money’s on you causing the end times.” Stanley pointlessly dusts off his shirt and then wipes his hands on Fiddleford’s shoulder (“Hey!”), before extending a marginally cleaner hand towards Josie. “Since my brother doesn’t seem to be doing the honours, _I’ll_ introduce myself. I’m Stanley Pines, unfortunate twin of that big ol’ nerd right there. You can call me Stan, though.” Josie squints at his hand and silently shakes it. Stanford tries not to be too offended. (It’s easier when he sees the tears springing up in Stanley’s eyes from the force of Josie’s grip.)

“Fiddleford Hadron McGucket, ma’am,” adds Fiddleford, deciding against the risk of a handshake and instead opting for a polite nod. “Pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

Josie just grunts. “Uh-huh. Josie Corduroy.” She squints at the disturbed area Stanford noticed earlier. “You fell in a hole, did ya? Was it the one decked out all metal-like over yonder?”

Stanley nods suspiciously. “Yeah? Is there a problem? I didn’t break anything, if that’s what you’re getting at.” He blinks. “And we _own_ this place, anyway, so I’ll fall in whatever holes I like.”

That’s met with a low rumble from Josie. She leads them towards the irregular hole, not speaking until they reach the rim of loose dirt; inside there’s the distinct sheen of metal walls marred by rust in a few places, and a makeshift ramp imprinted with some very recent footprints.

“Oh, this’ll be _great_!” cries Stanford, perched on the edge of the pit. “We can convert this into a lab space, that way we have a ton of living space up top; Fidds, did you get much of a look at how big it was when Stan fell in? It looks plenty big from here. Ah, we could store _so many specimens_ in here!” He looks like a kid in a candy store. The numerous dark glares Josie shoots his way regularly don’t seem to be doing anything to stymie his excitement, either.

“I ain’t tellin’ you what to do with your own time and property,” she says warningly, “but I’d be careful. Last guy who lived here, he excavated all that, lined it with about a foot of solid metal. Said it was protection against dark magic. ‘S why most people think this place is cursed, y’know?” A wry smile twists her mouth, and she gestures to the bare clearing around them. “Sure as hell didn’t stop the house aboveground from burning down, did it?”

“Um,” says Fiddleford. “Cursed?”

“Ah, that’s all fine,” says Stanford, standing up and wiping dust off his clothes. “There’s plenty of ways to undo curses and get rid of residual dark magic in an area.” He grins, and straightens his glasses from where they’ve slid down his nose a little. “Should we get on with surveying the area?”

The plan is pulled out from his pocket again (and subsequently made fun of by Stanley, though he truthfully thinks it’s a _really_ cool looking house, and remembers faintly a model they made together when they were ten and the world was still their oyster) and with vague sweeps of his hand he plots out where foundations will be laid. The space is perfect; it fits his plans near faultlessly, and the entire atmosphere of the space (curses and all) somehow slots exactly into the niches of their collective personalities: the feeling of a country town, the woods all around and trees in the diminishing sun, the simple untainted mystery in the air, the smell of pine and Oregon and absolute adventure in the air. Even Fiddleford’s careful apprehension about whatever dark magic might be lingering down below thaws at the sight of how purely _enthused_ his partner is.

“I’m so happy this is all working, dear,” he murmurs into Stanford’s ear while Josie is having a conversation with Stanley that seems to consist mainly of grunts. He holds just barely back from touching; a hand hovering on a shoulder, the other down at their hips, and then Stanford turns and looks right into his eyes and they grin together and Fiddleford looks so relieved and happy and in love that, well, he’d be an absolute monster if he did anything other than sweep his partner up in his arms and kiss him right there in the open air. Fiddleford _squeaks_ a little into his mouth, and pulls back and gestures with his eyes frantically at Josie (who is still quote unquote _talking_ with Stanley, but is only really a few feet away), and Stanford grins like all the emotion in his scientific heart is spilling over.

“It’s okay, Fidds,” he says, almost breathlessly. “It’s–  it’s _more_ than okay. We could get _married_ here if we wanted to.”

And Fiddleford lets out a breath he hadn’t realised he’d been holding all day long, feeling something inside of him start like a supernova. “Well,” he says, and smirks with red cheeks. “I hope you intend to _woo_ me first, Doctor Pines.” Stanford flushes and stammers and looks very exposed. Josie turns around and wolf-whistles.

Finally, after Stanford’s face has returned to its normal colour, there’s a few discussions about dimensions (though not multidimensional theory, just the size and scale of the house, disappointingly) and materials, and then Josie closes off her face and calls to Daniel and they drive off in the truck to get supplies and the rest of the sprawling Corduroy clan. The Mystery Trio stare fondly at the land for a while, arms linked in sight of the oncoming sunset while their shadows stretch long into the trees, and Gravity Falls seems pretty alright in the end.

(Well, then an enormous tree monster makes a grab for the Diablo and Stanley barrels off screaming obscenities and threats if it even scratches the _paint_ on that car, but it’s still a decent place to live.)

.

The obligatory house-building montage would probably go pretty nicely to a Johnson 6 song, Stanford has to admit.

.

A week later, they’re standing in front of a house _that they own_ (or, well, Stanford’s name is on the deed, even if Stanley was the one who wrote it) and feeling incredibly at home in the strange rhythms of Gravity Falls. Susan gave them a plate of free pancakes as a housewarming gift.

(The dreams had continued through the week in varying intensities, and through some unspoken and unaware pact none of them brought up the singularly grating voice that taunted them with jabs at the aching-soft centre of their beings.)

“Who’s stepping over the threshold first?” asks Stanford, biting his lip with excitement. It’s obvious he wants to be, but for the sake of politeness he’s holding himself back. Barely.

“...All of us at the same time?” suggests Fiddleford. They look at the door. It’s not _that_ wide.

Stanley just shrugs and says “Alright, then. Ally-oop,” and picks up Fiddleford under one arm and slings his brother over the opposite shoulder, and sidles through the doorframe with a double armful of nerd. When he’s over and standing on floorboards, with no fireworks sounding as they enter their fully-furnished home for the first time ever, he rather unceremoniously drops them both on the floor.

“Ow,” says Fiddleford after a moment.

“Stan!” protests Stanford. “Can you at least ask before picking me up next time?”

Stanley laughs, and throws a hand to both of them to help them up, and makes no promises about warning his brother in the future.

So: here they are, in a house–  in _their_ house–  in a home–  in _their_ home–  taking a rudimentary tour and finding the ways they’ll fit together in the coming years (years, decades, lifetimes, everyone hopes) through hallways and doors and the window in the kitchen and the bedrooms and the attic with its sharp steepled roof like fingers in thought, all of it lit purple by the sunset and sentiment, and it’s _good_. It’s good. Six days to build a house, and on the seventh day they probably won’t rest (not if Stanford’s eager curiosity has anything to say about it; in the past week he’s filled five pocket notebooks and is hungering for something more permanent and tome-like to collate his findings in) but they’ll have a damn good time of it anyhow.

The beds turn out to be ridiculously comfortable.

(Fiddleford thinks it’s even more comfortable with the steady warm weight of Stanford next to him, curled around like they were always meant to fit together, and with the somehow soothing snores of Stanley coming from down the hall, and he smiles, and he smiles, and he blessedly doesn’t dream of things that make his blood flow jagged in his veins.)

* * *

One night of reprieve from dreams, Bill decides. Let them have their small and meaningless victory, let them celebrate the erection of a shack in the woods that probably wouldn’t even survive a solid hit from a laser, let them feel safe for once.

Because, he thinks, or says (it doesn’t really matter, given the blurring of thought and speech in this sideways dimension that is his only hold in reality for the moment), _because_ it’ll only make it all the more sweet when he shatters that peace and makes them scream and writhe and bleed and whatever else creatures with physical forms do these days.

He rubs his hands together nefariously, or as nefariously as a triangle can perform that particular action, and says something never meant for mortal ears–

“L'OO PDNH VRPHWKLQJ RI WKLV EDFNZRRGV WLPHOLQH BHW.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here's an incomplete list of things i fudged/bent to my liking/completely made up: attitudes towards lgbt+ people in the 70s; probably the ages of Gravity Falls residents; the entire business of real estate; how long it takes to build a house; most things, probably. i'm so sorry. i feel like i lost grip of my characterisation in this chapter (probably because of how long it took to write, but, oh well) and i really do hope you all like it.
> 
> uh, what else. how about that finale? it's my birthday in a few days (eighteen! wahey!). hopefully the next chapter won't take over a month to write. chapter title is, again, from Tally Hall's song Never Meant To Know. thanks for reading! you're all so wonderful! leave a comment, it really does make it all worth it.


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